AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I interest you in dessert?” the waitress asked, filling up Lucas’s water glass.
Emily shook her head. “I’m full, but thank you.”
Lucas found himself wanting to order dessert just so he could prolong the meal, could prolong his time with Emily, but he declined, also.
“Thank you for dinner. Everything was delicious,” she told him so formally he cringed.
“You sound as if you’re done.”
“I am.”
“The night doesn’t have to end, Emily.” At her look of horror, he elaborated. “I didn’t mean we should have sex.”
Although, he didn’t find the idea nearly as horrific as she obviously did.
Because he still wanted her.
The realization was an earth-shattering one.
He still wanted Emily.
“Whatever you meant, my answer is no.”
“You aren’t curious about what I had in mind?”
She shook her head. “I just want this obligation over.”
Which put him in his place.
The waitress set their check on the table, and when Emily went to grab it, he beat her to the ticket.
“You’re not paying for our meal.”
“But the fund-raiser...”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re not paying.”
“But...”
“Emily, please don’t argue on this one. Just let me feel like a man by paying for my date’s dinner.”
“But I’m not really your date.”
“Sure you are. That’s what I won. A date with a beautiful bachelorette to raise money for a great cause.”
She glanced down at where her hands rested in her lap, then shrugged. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
What he wanted was Emily.
She was his ex-wife, not a woman he was trying to woo or get to know better. He already knew Emily better than any woman in his life. Only, he didn’t know her at all. Not anymore.
But he wanted to know her. Everything about her.
He finished his fresh glass of water, then nodded. “Yes, that’s what I want.”
When they’d split, he’d not been thinking clearly. He’d been spoiled, a kid still in many ways, focused on becoming a doctor, and when he’d had free time, he’d wanted to unwind, to hang with his fellow residents, his lifelong friends, to enjoy life and being young, not sitting inside the tiny apartment they’d called home and staring at the four walls. Or fighting, which was all they’d seemed able to do once they’d said I do.
What he should have been enjoying was Emily, but how could he do that when she’d cried almost nonstop, when he’d looked into her eyes and seen such horrific sadness that he hadn’t been able to stand it?
