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“Tell me more about your life in Melbourne.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
Yeah, practice definitely needed, stat. Along with an icebreaker, more wine and maybe a nice fire at the Flying Squirrel warehouse that would allow him to escape, because of course it would take hours to untangle.
He bit back a sigh. “Tilda, we’re married. We work together. The green-card people will think it’s weird that I know nothing about you, your childhood, your hopes, dreams. That’s what people who get married talk about as they’re falling in love.”
Didn’t they? He’d never talked about stuff like this with women. Hence the reason he was failing at it. Quite handily, too.
“Right-o.” She shut her eyes for a blink and then glugged about a third of her wine in one shot. “I’m not very good at this, either. I don’t date.”
That was an interesting admission. “Really? Not at all? It seems unlikely that you don’t get asked out. You’re an attractive woman.”
Something bright flared in her eyes and then vanished. “It might not have escaped your notice that I work a lot. Means I don’t have much time for dating.”
“You might have noticed that’s something we have in common.” The smile he flashed her was immediately returned and that was so encouraging that his widened involuntarily. “This is good for both of us. Indulge me in something. Relax,” he told her as she raised her brows in question. “It’s just me, and I solemnly swear not to tattle to the boss that we didn’t spend the evening talking about spreadsheets.”
That actually got a laugh out of her and it warmed something inside to hear. Because it meant she was taking his point seriously. That he might not be so bad at this, after all. Emboldened, he sipped his own wine and nudged her knee with his. “Melbourne?”
To her credit, she didn’t edge away from the physical contact, and he gladly took it as a small victory.
“I lived there with my parents, attended Victoria University on a full academic scholarship.”
“That’s impressive.”
She shrugged that off. “We weren’t wealthy by any stretch. If I wanted a degree, that was the only way.”
“You went to work for Craig right out of college?”
Nodding, she sipped more wine and the conversation ground to a halt. Okay. They were stuck together and he owed it to her to keep her eyes from glazing over.
“Come on.” He stood and held out his hand without thinking better of it.
But then he didn’t pull it back to his side. They could touch each other. It wasn’t a rule that they couldn’t. In fact, he’d say it was expected that a husband and wife touch each other, both in public and at home. How else would they get comfortable with it?
She eyed his hand. “Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes, to the railing so I can show you the garden. The personal conversation was too forced and people can get to know each other by means outside of the third degree.”
That got her vote of confidence. She slipped her hand into his and let him help her from the gargantuan chair. Now that she’d done so, he couldn’t help but notice that her hand was small and feminine in his. She was so capable and focused. He forgot occasionally that she couldn’t, in fact, walk on water, and if she had vulnerabilities, she didn’t advertise them.
He liked the reminder that she had softness hidden away, so he didn’t release her hand. Instead, he guided her to the edge of the terrace and stood with her at the railing, as promised, wedging in close.
She didn’t comment on his proximity, just stared over the circular rows of flowers that radiated outward from the center of the garden like a pinwheel. The sun was in the last throes of setting and the landscape lighting had clicked on sometime back, illuminating the grounds. The brightness was a security measure, but he pretended it was an extension of the romantic atmosphere. Everything in his life felt utilitarian all at once, and he wasn’t in the mood to continue in the same vein with his wife.
“This is a very unusual garden,” she remarked, pointedly not looking at their joined hands. But she didn’t pull away. “Do you spend a lot of time in it?”
He couldn’t help but smile, both at the hilariousness of the question and the fact that she’d fallen into personal conversation in a snap, exactly as he’d hoped. “My groundskeeper occasionally consults me on things like whether I’d like to change out the annuals, but no. For the most part, it’s just magic that I enjoy occasionally when I remember that it’s here.”
“If this was my house, I’d be out on this terrace all the time.”
