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“I’m afraid if I set my tarts on the ground, the ants will get them,” he said, holding up the tarts.
“Maybe we should eat those first.” Why not? Was it so terrible to eat dessert first?
“What’s that saying? The one about life is short, so eat dessert first?”
“I’m surprised you know that one.”
“I must have seen it fifteen times today as we walked along the sidewalk, looking at the different shops.”
“Oh.” That explained it. Alexander was an extremely intelligent person. She’d figured out that much about him after spending five minutes with him when she was first hired.
He didn’t forget much, and he noticed everything.
Except her birthday. She almost rolled her eyes at that. She hadn’t expected him to know, but there’d been a part of her that had been a little disappointed.
Without saying anything more, he set the bag of food from the diner aside and peeled back the plastic that covered the tarts. “I don’t think I needed that saying to convince me that these things are good enough that we should definitely eat them first. I would be upset if ants got even one bite.”
She grinned a little, looking up at him, wondering if he was being sincere, or if he was making fun of her somehow.
He was not the kind of person who talked badly about people. In the seven years that she worked with him, she barely heard him say an unkind word, unless it was definitely deserved and more along the lines of not wanting to work with someone again, for the sake of the company, not a personal attack.
But this... This seemed a little fanciful for her version of Alexander.
“I think the small town is rubbing off on you,” she said, a little uncertainly as she reached over to get a tart.
“No.” He moved the plate some so her fingers grasped at air. “I don’t think that’s how it’s done. At least, that’s not how you did it earlier.”
Her brows drew down, and she looked at him, confused.
He lifted his brows, almost as though challenging her, and then he picked up a tart. Surely he wasn’t going to eat the entire plate himself?
She was going to protest about that. After she got over her surprise.
But he didn’t feed himself the tart. Rather, his hand moved toward her. She almost reached for it, but she realized after a second or two what he was actually doing. He was going to feed her. The way she had fed him in the diner. Only she had done it because... She wasn’t sure. If she remembered correctly, he had his hands in his pockets, and she just hadn’t waited for him to get them out to reach for the tart. She’d been excited, wanted him to taste it immediately. It hadn’t been anything she planned.
But the tart reached her lips, and she opened her mouth, allowing him to place it inside.
Her stomach twisted, and her breathing seemed to spin. Unable to figure out what exactly was going on. It was so unlike Alexander, who was never anything but completely professional.
“Is it still the best thing you’ve ever eaten, Clara?” he asked, and somehow the words sounded...romantic.
She had to admit, she wasn’t tasting the tart. There were too many other things she was trying to figure out. Too many things were happening inside of her. Her chest felt wobbly, her stomach crazy, and her brain mush.
And he knew her first name. She couldn’t remember him ever calling her anything but Miss Landry up until that point.
It was the way he treated all of his business associates, with old-fashioned manners and charm. It was part of his...brand. Just him being a businessman.
“It’s very good,” she said, and she swallowed the last of it, knowing that what she said was true, even if she hadn’t tasted it.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked.
“I am?” she asked, surprised.
“My name.”
She stared at him. His name?
Maybe because he called her Clara, he expected her to return the favor?
