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A French restaurant with no French bread was a grand faux pas.
Or was it faux pas grand?
Whatever.
Julie had written an article a couple of years back about how gorging oneself early on in the dating ritual was a Bad Idea. Something about bloating and gluttony and other prehistoric ladies-should-be-ladies nonsense. Julie Greene was a bit of a legend when it came to dating.
But legend or not, Riley was pretty sure her best friend had gotten it wrong on this one. There was something utterly warped about changing one’s eating habits for a man. Any man.
Maybe that’s why Julie’s engaged and you’re not.
Stifling a sigh, Riley dug into the crème brûlée the server placed on the table between them. She took small bites. Not because she wanted to be dainty, but because it was freaking tiny, and she wanted to make it last.
Luckily Steven either didn’t have much of a sweet tooth or figured that hers was bigger than his, because he politely set his own spoon aside after two bites.
Good boy. Her hope for them just hitched up a notch. Sam would have been knocking her spoon out of the way to beat her to the brittle top, which everyone knew was the whole point of crème brûlée. A gentleman, Sam Compton was not.
“So, Riley,” Steven said, watching as she cleaned out the last sugary bits from every cranny of the mini custard pan. “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve done my fair share of dating, but I’ve enjoyed these last couple of weeks with you more than I’ve enjoyed a woman in a long, long time.”
What garbage.
“Me too,” she said instead. Grace had warned her about this earlier. Something-something-something, don’t kick his balls and just be nice.
It all sounded fishy to Riley, but Grace Brighton knew her shit.
If Julie was the dating guru of Stiletto, Grace was the magazine’s Dalai Lama of relationships. There was a kind gentleness to Grace that even a wretched breakup with a cheating bastard hadn’t diminished.
Not that Grace had remained single for long. In fact, she and Jake were probably doing some sort of nauseating just-for-two activity right this very second and actually enjoying it.
Barf.
Riley didn’t need any of that. Didn’t want it. She just wanted to stop feeling like …
A
fraud.
Steven was still talking. “I’m not ready for this date to end. How about you?”
Here it was. Tell him you don’t want it to end either. Ask if he wants to go back to your place for a nightcap.
She curved up the corners of her mouth and lowered her eyelids in a way that usually had men panting a little bit. “You want to come back to my place?”
Riley drew the line at using the word nightcap. This wasn’t 1954.
“I’d like that, Riley. Very much.”
Okay then. Even she knew what the husky voice and steamy look meant. His eyes skimmed her body, and his appreciative smile said he liked what he saw.
She resisted the urge to smirk. He hadn’t even seen the good stuff yet. One didn’t write about sex for a living and not learn a thing or two about sexy lingerie.
Words like nightcap may be passé, but the way Riley saw it, garter belts were always in style.
She just wished the big moment wasn’t quite so … imminent.
It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest they get another dessert … or hell, maybe just a repeat of the entire meal so that she’d actually feel full. But their server was already discreetly sliding the bill onto their table.
To her surprise, Steven let her pay for half. She’d offered on previous dates, but he’d always kindly waved away her credit card with a comment about his mother uninviting him at Christmas if she found out that he’d let a woman pay.
