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I ask if he wants to watch me change, making me blush a little.
“If I do that, we’ll never eat,” he quips, telling me where the bathrooms are right off his office, telling me he has a few calls to make.
He seems happy to go as he is, but Steve always looks sharp and smells terrific.
He could stop traffic in a pair of sweatpants and an old sweater.
“I won’t be long,” I promise him, but he urges me to take my time.
“We’ve got all night,” he says with a smile, cocking a brow that already tells me that dinner is only to refill both our fuel tanks.
The main course will be the two of us doing what we both feel the need for, now more than ever.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Steve
As soon as I sit behind my desk, the phone starts ringing.
It’s almost six o’clock on a Saturday, but that’s one of the things I do remember as normal for me now.
It’s why I sometimes just go for a walk or go home when I’ve had enough.
I pick up, ready to growl at Madison for patching someone straight through, but I’m relieved when I hear it’s Sister O’Halloran.
“Steven? Just tell me you’re alright. Tell me you found that nice young girl and took care of her,” she says, her voice filled with genuine concern.
I feel my mouth twist a little, but it’s easy enough to assure her.
“Oh yeah,” I tell her. “I found her and took care of her, and everything’s fine. I even have most of my memory back already,” I add quickly, wanting to steer clear of the topic of Holly with Sister O’Halloran.
Just for now.
But it soon sounds like Holly is the only reason she’s calling. Of course, there’s a gentle reminder about coming back to visit the kids’ ward ASAP, and another huge thank you for the check.
But it’s kind of hopeless to hold anything back from someone who knows me so well, let alone a nun.
“She’s such a lovely girl, Steven,” the old woman croons, sounding more like a doting grandma by the second. But I can’t disagree.
It doesn’t take much encouragement to start telling her how much I agree. Just how special Holly is to me.
“We’re actually going out to dinner tonight,” I confess, figuring I may as well come clean if she asks me if I’m involved with Holly directly. But Sister O’Halloran has way more tact than that.
“How lovely!” is all she needs to say. The tone of her voice giving me instant approval.
Never one to keep me on the phone long, she signs off just as Madison pokes his head around my office door without knocking.
I shoot him a dark look, only because I know Holly’s changing close by and I won’t have anyone, not even Madison risking seeing her like that.
Nobody.
She’s mine!
The sudden surge of protective jealousy pulses through me until I smile.
Reminding myself Holly’s not the only one with a few things to get used to.
I can’t keep her in a box, and whether I like it or not, people will see her, and I will have to share at least a little of her amazing beauty with the world.
