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She shakes her head, and directs me to a metal bench just off the walkway. She sits me down, looks me over. “Stay put. I have an idea.”
“Where are you going?” I call after her from where I’m sitting.
“Don’t move!” is the only response she throws over her shoulder. Then she hustles across the street and darts into a little market where I imagine she looks gorgeously out of place in her dress and heels.What the fuck?
My instinct is to trail after her to make sure she doesn’t get herself in any kind of trouble. She shouldn’t be alone at this time of the night, looking as good as she does. But then I think back to Nicky’s long diatribe about independent women and treating Nadia like my equal.
Right. Gotta keep the caveman on a leash.
Still, my eyes stay peeled to the door of the shop like a hawk. It takes all my force to sit where I am and wait.
I hold the bag of cold veggies on my face until I see her coming back. With a proud grin, she plops down on the bench next to me.
“What’s all this?” I ask, carefully eyeballing her haul.
She hands me a brown paper bag. I peek inside and pull out a bottle of red wine. Then she unloads her sacks, revealing all sorts of finger foods that she picked up from the market. Fruits. Cheeses. Preserved meats. Nuts.
My lips quirk up. “We’re having our first date on a park bench?”
“Yes, we are.” Then she looks me straight in the eyes and grins. “Add this to the list of stories we’re going to have to tell our kids someday…”
There are no words to describe the way my chest tightens when she says that. A happy feeling spreads all over me and for a moment I forget the untimely demise of our perfect evening.
I may be out of words but I’m perfectly capable of using my body to show her how I feel. I tenderly cup her cheek and press my lips to hers.
When we pull apart from the kiss, Nadia’s face turns my favorite shade of shy.
“Just as long as you don’t tell the kids that you ended up paying for the food and drinks, because that’ll just make me look bad.”
She laughs. “You’ll make up for it next time.”
I kiss her cheek. “I will.” And my heart kicks at the idea of a next time. I want a lifetime of ‘next times’ with this woman by my side.
She holds a styrofoam container open in my face. “Come on. Let’s eat.”
We joke and we flirt and we playfully feed each other finger foods. The moon peeks at us from between the barren tree branches. I end up draping my jacket around Nadia’s shivering body as the wind picks up.
I don’t mention Liam and neither does she. I know it’s a subject at the back of both of our minds but we dance around it all night. I think we both just want to enjoy each other for once without worrying about the walls trying to close in on us. We just want to be in love and pretend that that’s all that matters. That everything is right in the world.
She keeps fussing over my bruised cheek, holding the now melty peas to my face. But I can’t even complain, because the feel of Nadia’s touch on me has me wanting to get hurt on every date we go on. And there’ll be more dates. Many, many more dates. I’ll make sure of it.
When we’re too cold to stay out any longer, we walk back to the car. I blast the heater and reluctantly drive Nadia home.
After rushing to open the passenger door for her, I walk her to her front door. The whole way, I’m plotting how I’m going to charm my way through the front door and into her bed.
We stand there on her stoop under the porch light, with Nadia gazing up at me, fiddling with her keys and still looking adorable in my jacket.
I lean down, pressing a gentlemanly kiss to the corner of her mouth, hating that our date is coming to an end. “I had an amazing time tonig—”
“Do you want to come inside?” she blurts out before I can even start laying on my charm.
I grin so big it hurts. “Yeah.”
Her grin mirrors mine. She elbows her door open and yanks me inside by the front of the shirt. “Sheesh! Well, don’t just stand there, Westbrook.”
34
HARRY
