“Hi,” I heard myself saying warmly.
Usually when Tommy and I ate out, he gruffly demanded a quiet table for two or three, his perma-scowl frightening the hostess and eventually the server. It was a delicious freedom to be myself, happy, light, cheery ... whatever you wanted to label it.
“I’m meeting someone,” I told the curvy blonde wearing all black.
“No problem. Did you want to wait at a table or out here?”
As I soaked in the welcoming ambience with Ed Sheeran crooning in the background, I ran my palm over my neck, feeling my pulse throbbing. I tried to speak, but a tremor made its way up my throat, tightening my vocal cords. Swallowing hard, I tried to push aside my anxiety and excitement in equal measure.
“Margo.”
Mick’s rough voice tickled all my senses before I could answer the hostess. Turning almost too quickly, I was overcome with a bout of lightheadedness.
“Whoa,” I whispered, but of course he heard me, taking hold of my elbow.
“You okay?” Mick asked, not releasing me.
When the pads of his fingers singed my skin in a way Tommy’s didn’t, I instantly realized the difference between pain and burning need.
Closing my eyes for a beat, I reopened them and whispered, “Mick.”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned in to speak softly. “Margo, you good?”
Never mind that this whole scene was playing out in the entrance to the Paula. A man who wasn’t my husband had his hand on me, which felt absolutely decadent, and I was a second away from fainting in his arms.
“Yes,” I said softly, gathering myself, trying to clear the fog in my head and the frog who’d set up residence in my throat. “Sorry about that. I just, I guess I didn’t think this through. We’re close to my home, and we could see someone I know.” With each new word, my voice tightened with increased panic, my initial excitement overtaken by nerves.
Mick nodded. “If anyone asks, I’m a person you’re interviewing for ... what are you writing now?” He slowly released me, making sure I was steady on my feet before backing away a step.
“Fashion Week.”
This got me another eyebrow raise. Taking a deep breath for the first time in minutes, I wondered what the hostess was thinking.
“Great. For Fashion Week. I look fashionable, right?”
Standing mere inches from him, I took in his pale blue shirt tucked into suit pants, his sleeves casually rolled up, as well as his designer belt and Ferragamo loafers.
Mick wasn’t the epitome of gender-neutral fashion like the story I was covering, but he was delectable and tasteful. But I didn’t say either of those things.
Instead, I said, “You’ll do.”
This time, I got a laugh before he flagged the hostess. “Two, in the back,” he said authoritatively.
“Of course.” She grabbed two menus and an iPad, then walked us toward the back.
I’d always loved this restaurant. It wasn’t anything fancy, a neighborhood watering hole kind of place. A gastropub, they called themselves. Tommy—God, I had to stop thinking about him—thought it was too trendy for him. He preferred old-school Italian or a steakhouse.
“Is this okay?” The hostess directed her question to Mick.
He nodded, signaling for me to sit on the bench along the exposed brick wall. I slid in, watching him take a seat across from me, and wondered for the eighty-ninth time today what I was doing.
Mick Grantham was beyond handsome with dark hair and even darker eyes, a smattering of hair up his muscular forearms. An alpha in gentleman’s clothing, or maybe I was a lamb with rose-colored glasses. After all, my decision-making hadn’t put me in the best place thus far.
“I assume you’ve been here?” Mick asked once he was seated.
“I have,” I mumbled.
“It’s been a favorite of mine since I came to Boston. Gotta admit, any excuse to get over here, I do.”
