Act Like You Love Me (An Accidentally in Love Novel) (Entangled: Bliss) by Cindi Madsen Page A

Sunday evening. Not wanting to waste even more time looking for parking, she hurried down the sidewalk. She made it two blocks, then had to stop for the red light.
    She heard a tapping noise. Then it got louder. She glanced around, trying to find the origin. Then she spotted Sawyer sitting in the corner of the Daily Grind Coffee Shop, knocking on the window.
    The pedestrian crosswalk sign flashed from red to white, but walking away from Sawyer felt rude—regardless of the fact that he’d done it to her before.
    If she blew him off now, though, she might not get another chance to practice her flirting on him. It had worked like a charm yesterday, giving her a much-needed ego boost, and she was curious if she could keep it up. Practice makes perfect, and there was a date with a hot cop on the line, after all.
    Brynn moved closer to the window and waved, flashing him what she hoped was an alluring grin. Sawyer held up a finger in the universal sign for hold on. He twisted back to his table, where she saw he had a laptop, notebook, and large coffee cup. He scribbled something on his notebook, ripped out the sheet of paper, and then held it against the window. In big block print it said call me and then had his number underneath.
    She dialed it, feeling silly standing outside the window calling him while he was right there, only a thick pane of glass away. “Call you now?” she asked when he answered.
    “No, call me later. Get in here now.”
    “I can’t. I’m late for…” Crap. If she told him she was late for family dinner, then that would undo all of her—she still didn’t want to call them lies. More like her carefully crafted character. Yeah, that sounded better.
    “Stop trying to think of an excuse,” Sawyer said, his deep voice soothing and undoing her at the same time. “You already took too long for me to believe any lame excuse you’d come up with now. It’s starting to give me a complex, actually, and I can’t write when I feel like that. Since you’re the cause, you need to get in here and fix it.”
    “But I—”
    He hung up the phone, crossed his arms, and stared at her. She so didn’t have time for this, but she couldn’t exactly walk away. Her phone chimed with another text from Mom.
    Brynn glanced toward the bakery and then back at Sawyer. He frowned, a dramatic, made-for-the-stage kind of frown. And here she’d thought he was a serious guy. With a sigh, she backtracked to the coffee shop door, took a moment to inhale the delicious rich scent inside, and moved to where Sawyer was seated. The chair across from him scooted out—he’d obviously pushed it with his foot—and he gestured for her to sit down.
    Brynn twisted the bauble ring on her finger. “I really do have somewhere I need to be. In fact, I’m super late, and I shouldn’t have even come in here in the first place.”
    “What do you want? I’m on my third cup of coffee, so I’m thinking it might be time to switch to something else.” He stood, so close their bodies were all but touching, and she wondered just how angry her mom would be if she skipped tonight’s dinner.
    Probably somewhere between nuclear and apocalyptic fall-out.
    Her phone dinged. “One second.” Mom. Of course. At times like these, she wished she hadn’t insisted her mom learn to text. Then again, she’d be calling otherwise.
    Brynn sent a quick text back telling Mom that she was running a little late but would be there ASAP. Mom’s reply asked where Paul was and why he wasn’t there yet, so she sent another text explaining she didn’t know, but she knew he was coming.
    When she glanced up from her phone, she noticed something in Sawyer’s eyes—she swore he was looking at her like she was…pretty. Her heart swelled and she got that fresh-off-a-roller-coaster feeling. Everyone else—every thing else—disappeared.
    Her hand moved to his face like it had a mind of its own. She ran her palm down his stubbled cheek. “You look nice. Very