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“Like something a big gruff SEAL shouldn’t say, you mean,” she corrects. “But there are no men like you, Markus. There’s only you. Hmm?”
I smirk again and then frame her face in my hands, feeling the blistering warmth of her cheeks, touch my palms, move up my arms and straight into my chest, my heart, my soul, whatever the hell I want to call it.
“Alright, the truth?”
“Always,” she whispers.
“I was thinking about how I’m never going to be the same, and how I’m quite fucking happy about that, and how if I never would have met you my life would have been unspeakably sad.”
She reaches up, touching my face, and I wonder briefly if we look strange—two people touching each other’s faces, completely consumed with each other.
And then I realize I don’t give a damn.
Because I have her.
That’s all that matters.
“Oh, sorry,” the waiter says, the only time somebody has ever got the drop on me without me realizing it. He’s stand at the edge of the table, notepad in one hand and pen in the other. “I’ll, uh, give you a minute.”
Millie’s smile spreads across her face, pure delight, and her giggles come like music. My laughter follows shortly after.Chapter EighteenMillieEncouraged by Markus, I order the bratwurst with the fries, my belly rumbling when I look across the log cabin restaurant to the kitchen, steam, and smoke rising with a hiss of frying behind it, my mouth filling with saliva.
I still feel like laughing every time I think about the waiter finding us like that, cradling each other’s faces. He must’ve thought we were some kind of weirdos, but really it was just … us.
Butterflies flap wings of pure light inside me when I realize that there is an us, that we are beginning to become a partnership despite the short timeframe.
“What are you thinking?” Markus asks, turning away from the ocean to face me.
“Just that it’s crazy, me and you,” I murmur.
“Because it’s only been a few days?” I nod, and he goes on, “Crazy. Sane. I’m done thinking in those terms. I’m done questioning it. I’m done second-guessing it. All I know is that you mean more to me than anybody. That’s all there is to it.”
“Careful, Markus, you’re going to give me a big head,” I joke.
“You deserve it,” he snarls. “After all, my head chef should be confident.”
My cheeks flame and my lips seem suddenly dry. I take a sip from the stein and then from my glass of water, running my tongue over my lower lip, staring at Markus as he looks back at me with those perceptive glinting greens.
“What’s wrong?” he asks plainly.
“It’s just … wouldn’t that be like, I don’t know, cheating?”
“Why?” he says passionately, puffing up like a silverback gorilla getting ready to defend his territory. “You’ve spent your whole life learning about this stuff. And I want to give you a chance to practice it. And let’s say that you turn out to be terrible … which seems impossible to me, but let’s just humor that insane notion. Then the restaurant will fail and you’ll be forced to step down. So you see, Millie? Actually, you’re right. It is unfair, but unfair for you. Instead of slowly working your way up, you’ll immediately have all the responsibility of a kitchen to contend with.”
A part of me recoils at the thought, the same shivering part that wanted to climb under a rock and hide away every time Finn sent me one of his pathetic little notes.
I know what you’ve done.
Well, I don’t, Finn … so why don’t you freaking enlighten me.
I shake my head, focusing on Markus, listening to that other part of me—the part that swells with I-can-do-this fervor.
“You’re right,” I murmur. “You wouldn’t be giving me a handout. You’d be giving me a crazy task and there’s every chance I could fail. Oh my God, I could accept, couldn’t I? I really could do this.”
“I believe in you,” he growls passionately. “I can just see it. You standing in the kitchen in your fine as hell chef’s outfit, the steam making you seem like an angel … even more of an angel than you already are. And then our children all around you, listening to you speak about the dish you’re preparing. The way they’ll look at you, Millie, goddamn, it’ll be like you’re magic. No, you are magic. They’ll look at you with so much love you’ll have to fight off tears every second of every goddamn day.”
I blink, realizing I’m doing that right now. “And you,” I whisper. “They’ll love you just as much.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be the ex-military grump making sure they’ve got discipline. They’ll always be more loving with you. I’d have it no other way.”
“You sound like you’ve got it all planned out,” I say, moving my finger around the edge of my stein, otherwise I might punch the air and leap around and cheer like a madwoman. “So how many children do you see?”
