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“Dulceat?a?—”
“Don’t call me that!” I was feeling anything but sweet at the moment. In fact, if I could have gotten an arm free, I’d have probably hit him. But his had gone around me and they were holding me tight, although at least I could move my head now. I looked up.
His face was absolutely and suspiciously sober, but his eyes were dancing.
“You’re a bastard,” I said with feeling.
“I assure you, my parents were properly wed. And I was merely going to say that you’re right.”
“I know I’m right!” I blinked. “What?”
“I should have warned you that they were here, but I did not expect you to be quite so . . . bold.”
And no, he probably hadn’t, I realized. He’d probably expected me to come out in a robe or a towel, or at least to poke my head around the door first. Not to storm out like the bathroom was on fire. Or like a really, really inept stripper.
I winced and let my head fall forward. “That’s me,” I told him miserably. “I’m bold.”
“To a frightening degree at times,” he murmured, combing his fingers through my wet curls.
“I don’t try to be.”
“I know.”
We just stood there a while, and it felt really good. He was freshly washed, with his dark hair still damp and combed back from his face, and he was wearing a robe like mine. I guessed that either the suite had a second bathroom or, considering how the hotel manager had been pretty much genuflecting, they’d opened another room for him. Or possibly the entire floor.
Anyway, this was better. This was the best part of the date so far.
Not that that was saying much.
“Cassie?”
“Hm?”
“You can’t stay in the bathroom all night.”
“Why not?”
“It’s wet.”
“Don’t care.”
“It’s going to get cold.”
“Don’t care.”
“And you’ll miss dinner.”
I looked up, feeling a slight bit of hope creeping in past the utter mortification. “Dinner?”
“Dinner,” he said, and pulled me out the door.
Chapter Fourteen
We reentered the living room and I figured out what everyone had been doing over by the fireplace. Flames danced on a row of silver chafing dishes, which had been strung out along the hearth to keep them warm. In front of them was a picnic area, if picnics featured silk cushions, bone china, linen so white it gleamed and napkins tortured into little birds of paradise. There was a single rose in a crystal vase that reflected the firelight. It was lovely.
It was also less interesting than the contents of those dishes, which smelled heavenly. My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch and it had been a busy night. I knelt in front of the fire and picked up the first lid, happy and hopeful and starving and—
“What’s this?” I asked, perplexed.
