“Let’s go, baby.” He reached out his hand for me and I took it.
We got in his ‘weekend’ car. It was a silver Lexus LS 500 convertible, and it was beautiful. I was just a bit overwhelmed and not at all sure how I felt about him having multiple cars. I mean, he was a surgeon from a wealthy family. An almost thirty-year-old with no real obligations, so there was no reason he shouldn’t have so much. It just felt… excessive. Or showy.
But I was being unkind. He was a down-to-earth guy for the most part.
“I’m guessing no top down tonight?” he asked with a grin as he held the door for me.
“I mean, I’m fine with it if you don’t mind eating dinner across from someone who looks like they have a woodland creature resting on their head where their hair should be.”
He gave me a slight smile. “Fine. No convertible this time. I’m starting to understand why those ladies wore scarves on their heads in old movies.”
We mainly talked about work on the way to the restaurant. He was taking me to a little out of the way Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Buckhead. I loved Italian—who didn’t?—so I was excited.
The part of town we were in almost looked like a little piece of Europe. There were cobbled sidewalks that were beautifully lit, and ivy all over the outside of the restaurant. I loved it. It had a very romantic feel.
Dinner, as usual, was nice. I found Heath easy to talk to. He had a sense of humor, but he wasn’t funny in the way Tim often was. I sometimes wondered if humor was something that faded as people grew up. That’s what it seemed like with Heath, anyway. He rarely cracked up at anything I said, and it had gotten to the point that I’d quit trying around him.
I sometimes wondered if he’d be happier with one of the nurses who was more… mature? calm? boring?... I wasn’t sure what the right word was. He just never seemed particularly happy with me when I was just trying to cut loose and be myself.
He was also more than a little horrified by Anne and Gilbert. When I’d taken Anne out to show him and let him hold her, he’d backed away from me so fast he’d fallen over an ottoman in the family room. “Get thatthingaway from me!” he’d barked at me.
Later that day I’d suggested that we might have different interests, but he’d held fast to wanting to date me. I just hadn’t had him back over to hang out with my tortoises. Everyone I’d ever dated before had seemed to think they were cool. Or at least they’d pretended that they thought so. Heath had practically run out of my house to get away from them.
Maybe he’d been attacked by a rogue turtle in his youth.
Dinner was drawing to a close, and I was looking forward to going back to the hotel room. I was sure it was nice. Heath didn’t do anything halfway. He also wasn’t the type to stay in a budget conscious room. And I was in dire need of some sex, to be honest. I needed a stress release. I’d been thinking so often about the upcoming decisions on the horizon for me, that I’d found myself getting stressed out about it.
It would be nice to just enjoy making love to a beautiful, kind man.
“Did you hear me?”
I looked up at him a little guiltily. “Sorry, my mind must’ve wandered.”
I realized that several waitstaff were heading our way. My eyes got big as I saw everything they were bringing. Extra candles, roses, Tiramisu, champagne and glasses, and the kind of blue gift bag almost anyone would realize was from Tiffany’s.
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was he going topropose? I was suddenly sick at my stomach. Oh my God. Surely, he wouldn’t.
That would be… crazy. Four months? I still felt like I couldn’t even be myself around him.
The waitstaff set everything up for him and then disappeared with smiles on their faces. They seemed to know Heath. Had he done this sort of thing with other women? I mean it was fine unless I found out he had five or six ex-wives or something.
He reached for my hand. “Natalie, these past four months have been some of the best of my life. And it’s all because of you.”
It was?
“I’ve never dated anyone more beautiful, intelligent, or kind than you, and I find myself falling more and more in love with you every day.”
He did?
“I’m not going to propose…”
Oh, thank God.
“Yet.”
Jesus. I swallowed hard.
“But I do want to make my intentions clear. I’m serious about you, Natalie. I fully intend for you to be my wife one day.” He pushed the Tiffany bag towards me. “Open it.”
