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I chuckled. “It’s true. Ask them when we get there. They’ll tell you the same thing I just did.”
“I’m going to. That’s the craziest way a restaurant has ever adopted a name.”
“What can I tell you? Windermere isn’t the sleepy little village people think it is.”
“Oh, yes. That renaming story was right up there with a rave on the town square.”
I laughed again, shaking my head as I turned onto the road that would lead us to the steakhouse. “You clearly haven’t experienced the wildness that is karaoke night.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ELLIE
Curiouser and Curiouser
“Karaoke night? I’m sure it can’t be wilder here than they are in London,” I replied, eyeing him speculatively.
Bloody hell, the man was handsome. His white shirt and dark blue suit were tailored so well it had to be illegal, and there was something in the way he carried himself.
The car was hot, too.
I was by no means a petrolhead, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate a good sports car.
Or a Ford Focus.
Max snorted. “I’m not ruining it for you. I think there’s one next week.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t say that and not tell me why it’s so wild.”
“I’ll take you instead. It’s something you have to… experience,” he finished slowly, pulling up outside a beautiful Tudor-style building that looked big enough to have been a home once upon a time. “It’s not as old as it looks,” he said when he caught me looking. “It was built in the eighteen-hundreds to fit in with some of the other buildings in this area.”
“It’s hardly a new building,” I said, staring at it. “Is that real roof thatching?”
“No, just cleverly done to look like it. It’d all blow away if it was.” He chuckled as he got out of the car. He walked around it to open my door, and I couldn’t help the small curl of my lips when he held his hand out for me.
I took it, marvelling for the second time tonight at how small my hands were compared to his. And his skin—it was rough but smooth at the same time in a way I couldn’t comprehend, and all I knew is that I really didn’t mind him holding my hand at all.
Um, that’s not good.
Max kept hold of my hand as we made our way from the car to the front of the restaurant. It really was a gorgeous spot. The rolling hills of the valley surrounded us at every turn, and the green fields were dotted with black and white smudges that could only be sheep. A stream ran behind the restaurant, fed by numerous natural springs that trailed down from the tops of the hills in lazy, higgledy-piggledy tiny waterfalls.
I needed to take reference photos before I left.
Max opened the door for me to step inside first, and a cool breeze wafted across my palm where his hand had just been. It was a weird sensation of loss, but it was quickly brushed away when he laid his hand on the small of my back.
It fit there like it was made for it, and a shiver ran down my spine as his fingertips brushed against it.
He had to have felt that.
There was no way he didn’t.
Max didn’t acknowledge the involuntary reaction if he noticed it, instead turning his attention to the woman behind the hostess station. She was young, cute, blonde, and blushed when Max smiled at her.
“I have a reservation for two at six forty-five,” he said warmly.
She blushed and cleared her throat as she scanned the clipboard in front of her. “Of course. Please follow me, Lord Windermere, Miss Aarons.”
Oh.
