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“You know damned well why.” Her eyes flashed with anger, and she stepped away from him. “Why are we playing twenty questions anyway?”
He went after her and put a hand on her shoulder. Now that he was around her again, he constantly felt the need to be close to her, touching her. “I’m sorry. My idea was that—if you want to—instead of starting out by rehashing the past, we could make a fresh start.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if you came here and met a guy you liked and who liked you too, you’d spend some time with him, get to know him, wouldn’t you? And then, if you still liked him, maybe you’d see him again after you go home. Maybe, after a while, the two of you would decide that he should move to Napa to be with you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “What are you saying, Marcos?”
“I’m saying … would you give me a chance this weekend, while you’re here—a chance as a new guy you can get to know?”
She held his gaze. “And just pretend we don’t know each other?”
He shrugged. “That sounds like role-play and maybe taking it a little too far.”
She smiled. “It could be fun.”
He chuckled. He’d missed her sense of adventure. “It could, but I don’t want to just pretend.”
She nodded slowly. “We could try it, I guess. Like I said, I want to be around you, but I’m not ready to talk about everything we need to talk about.”
“So, we don’t. We save it for a little further down the line—but don’t think I want to avoid it. Leaving you is the biggest regret of my life. I need to explain myself—no excuses.”
She nodded again. “Okay. We’ll get to all of that. For now … Hello, handsome guy who just walked me to my cabin. Would you like to stay and have a glass of prosecco with me?”
He relaxed. Molly was perhaps the only woman on earth who’d go along with what he knew was a crazy idea, but he was so thankful to her. “Why yes, beautiful lady. Thank you. I’d love to hang out with you and drink some bubbles.”
Chapter Four
Molly sipped her prosecco and stared out at the lake. This was weird—good, but weird. A couple of hours ago she’d been expecting to spend the weekend with Chelsea and Grant and Mary Ellen and Antonio. She’d wondered when she’d get to see Marcos. She’d suspected it wouldn’t be until tomorrow night. Now, she was sitting here with him out on the deck overlooking a little sandy beach. The whole weekend lay ahead of them, and she had no idea how she wanted to handle it. She looked up as Marcos came back outside.
“How’s the restaurant doing?”
She nodded. “It’s doing really well.”
“There was never any doubt you’d make a success of it.”
She nodded. He was right. Molly’s was her life. She’d known it since the day her dad opened the place and named it after her.
“What are you doing now? Antonio said you were trading cryptocurrencies, but I find that hard to believe.”
He chuckled. “I would have, too, not so long ago. I told you I’ve changed.”
She smiled. It was becoming apparent that he had. “I know, but it can’t be as risky as I thought it was. There’s no way on earth you’d be doing it if it were.”
“True. It’s not so risky at all once you understand it.”
She drained her glass and set it down. This wasn’t working. They weren’t going to make a fresh start by having a stilted conversation about what they each did for a living.
Marcos smiled. “You haven’t changed that much, have you? If I’m reading you right, you’re restless and sitting around here talking isn’t your idea of fun.”
She blew out a sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s just too weird. After all these years not knowing if we’d ever get to talk at all, now we’re here, and we may as well be talking about the weather.”
He got to his feet and held his hand out to her, pulling her up to join him. “So, what do you want to do? Do you want to rent a boat? Go four-wheeling or horseback riding? Go for a hike? You name it, we’ll do it.”
She smiled. “Do you want to swim?”
He pursed his lips. “In the lake?”
