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Heart fluttering, Lexi stopped in her heels. “Seriously?”
“I need to find out for myself if this is something I want Philly involved in,” said Stephen, slowing down for Lexi to catch up with him.
“Did you talk this over with Nate? Should we go and get him?”
Stephen half turned his face toward her. “Nate does not have the final say in what happens with this beauty pageant. We’ll drive down Friday afternoon.”
“We?” Lexi gulped. She and Stephen? Alone? Her palms began to sweat. She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking again until Stephen turned around and grabbed her hand.
“We,” he repeated. “I, rather we, will need you to guide us, and this will give me a chance to get to know you better.”
Hand on her hip, Lexi cocked her head to the side and studied him. “What is there to know?”
“Oh, darling,” Stephen said, his heart-stopping, devilish grin sending a shiver down her spine, “I want to learn what’s beyond the beauty queen.”
Chapter 7
The intention he’d had when leaving the new shop with Lexi was to take her someplace nice and quiet. Despite the occasional fly and gnat, he wouldn’t change a thing, though.
During their lunch in the park, Stephen ate and watched Lexi. They shared a meal seated across from each other on a green metal picnic table. The paper wrappers their lunch came in became background noise between them as they dined on food from Southern Spin, a food truck doing exactly what the title promised. Lexi swore by the soul-food egg rolls and macaroni-grilled-cheese sandwich, so he took her up on her suggestion and added an order of pork nachos.
“You must work out a lot,” Stephen said after Lexi polished off the second half of her collard green–filled egg roll.
“Are you saying something about my eating habits?”
Stephen coasted past the answer by chuckling. Better to laugh than to point out the half pizza she’d polished off last night or the three bowls of shrimp and grits the day before. Yet the woman still managed to have the most alluring hourglass figure he’d ever seen.
Lexi let him off the hook with a playful eye roll along with an explanation. “Besides work, I don’t have anything else to do.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“You don’t date?”
She rested her elbows on the holes of the table and dropped her shoulders. Despite her posture, she still reminded him of a beauty queen. “Southwood is one of those small towns, you know?”
“I do.” He nodded his head, then wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I grew up in Villa San Juan.”
“Florida?” Lexi perked upright.
“I usually have to clarify not the one in Puerto Rico,” Stephen chuckled. “You’ve heard of it?”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Eagerly nodding, Lexi wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “My friends and I passed up spring break at the usual Panama City Beach and headed over to Villa San Juan Beach. So you’re from there? Why did I assume you were from Atlanta?”
“My business is there.” With his mind preoccupied with Lexi lounging around on his hometown beach, Stephen absentmindedly reached across the table with his thumb and wiped away a faint smear of her red lipstick. Her eyelashes fluttered against her high cheekbones at the touch. “It was in Atlanta,” he corrected himself and pulled his hand away.
“You sound sad.”
Stephen cleared his throat. His eyes gazed across the park at the dozens of food trucks. The lines of customers were dwindling. Everyone apparently was going on about their day. “What makes me sad is I spent a lot of time in Atlanta instead of here.” He turned his eyes to face Lexi. Her eyes stayed focused on his words.
“Because you dislike small towns?”
“I don’t dislike small towns, exactly,” he tried to explain. “I’m not a fan of everyone in my business and blind fix-ups like I’d get back at home in Villa San Juan.”
A long S-shaped curl slid up and down on the front of her polka-dot blouse as she nodded. “I understand. Everyone around town knows your secrets.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her about her secrets. Why didn’t her mother stop last night and speak to her? Why did Lexi freeze up and tear up?
“Where did you live in Atlanta?”
“Berkeley Lake.”
