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“Your perception is free from the distortions of inclinations. You cut to the essence of things, see people and situations for what they are, not what you’d prefer them to be, and don’t let the background noise of others’ opinions distract you.” He slid her that proud, appreciative glance that he bestowed on her so frequently these days. “You proved that to me when you accepted my word and adjusted your opinion of me, guided only by your reading of me against overwhelming circumstantial evidence and long-standing misconceptions. It’s because you’re so welcoming of adjustments and so goal oriented that you achieve the best results in everything. I mean, look at me…”
Oh, God, not again. Didn’t he have any idea what it did to her just being near him, let alone looking more closely at him than absolutely necessary?
No, he didn’t.
He had no idea whatsoever how he made her feel.
She sighed. “I’m looking. And purple does become you. Anything else I should be looking at?”
“Yes, the miracle you worked. You took a fed-up man who was feeling a hundred years old and turned him into that eager kid who skips around doing all the things he’d long given up on. And you did it by just being your no-nonsense self, by just reading me right and telling me everything you thought and exactly what I have to hear.”
She almost winced. She wasn’t telling everything she thought. Not by a long shot. But her thoughts and feelings where he was concerned were her responsibility. She had no right to burden him with what didn’t concern him.
But he was making it harder by the minute to contain those feelings within her being’s meager boundaries.
He wasn’t finished with his latest bout of unwitting torment. “You yanked me out of the downward spiral I was resigned to plunge into until I hit rock bottom. So, yes, I’m sure your choice of abodes will be the best one for me. Because you’ve been the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
The heart that had been squeezing harder with every incredible word almost burst.
To have him so eloquently reinforcing her suspicion that he’d come to consider her the replacement best friend/sister he needed was both ecstasy and agony.
Feeling the now-familiar heat simmering behind her eyes, she attempted to take this back to lightness. “What’s with the seriousness? And here I was secure in the fact that you’re incapable of being that way around me.”
His smile was so indulgent that she felt something coming undone right in her very essence. “I’m always serious around you. Just in a way that’s the most fun I’ve ever had. But if you feel I’m burdening you with making this choice…”
And she had to laugh. “Oh, shut up, you gigantic weasel. After all the sucking up you did, and all the puppy-dog-eyed persuasion that you have perfected in front of that mirror, you have the audacity to pretend that I have a choice here?”
His guffaw belted out, almost made her collapse onto herself. “Ah, Kanza, you are the most fun I’ve ever had.”
Yeah. What every girl wanted to hear from the most divine man on earth. That she made him laugh.
But she’d already settled for that. For anything with him. For as long as she could have it. Come what may.
He brought the car to a stop in front of a building that felt vaguely familiar. As he opened his door, she jumped out so he wouldn’t come around to open hers, since opening doors and pulling back seats for her seemed to be the only acts that indicated that he considered her female.
When he fell into step beside her, she did a double take.
They were on Fifth Avenue. Specifically in front of one of the top Italian-renaissance palazzo-style apartment buildings in Manhattan.
Forgetting everything but the excitement of apartment hunting, she turned to him with a whoop. “I used to live a block from here.” And she’d found the area only “vaguely familiar.” He short-circuited her brain even more than she’d thought. “God, I loved that apartment. It was the only place that ever felt like home.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Zohayd didn’t feel like that?”
“Not really. You know what it was like.”
He frowned and, if possible, became more edible than ever. “Actually, I have no idea how it was like for you there. Because you never told me.” As soon as they entered the elevator, he tur
ned to her with a probing glance. “How did we never get to talk about your life in Zohayd?”
She shrugged. “Guess we had more important things to discuss. Like how to pick the best avocado.”
His lips pursed in displeasure. “That alone makes me realize how remiss I’ve been and that there is a big story here. One I won’t rest until I hear.”
She waved him off. “It’s boring, really.”
His pout was adamant. “I live to be bored by you.”
The last thing she wanted to do was tell him about her disappointment-riddled life in Zohayd. But knowing him, he’d persist until she told him. The best she could hope for was to distract him for now.
