“Oh my God,” she says.
“I wanted to apologize for last night.” I thrust the bouquet toward her. “For leaving so abruptly. For not coming back. For—”
“Alessandro, this is,” She takes the roses, and pauses her eyes wide. “This is a lot of roses.”
“Too much?”
“I mean, it’s definitely a statement.” She buries her face in the blooms, inhaling. When she looks back up, she’s trying not to laugh. “What exactly are you apologizing for? Because this feels like ‘I crashed your car’ levels of apology flowers, not ‘I had to leave during an emergency’ flowers.”
“I wanted to make it up to you.”
“With three dozen roses.”
“Is that too many?”
“There’s no such thing as too many roses when you own a flower shop.” She steps aside, gesturing for me to come in. “Give me one second to put these in water. They’re beautiful, by the way. Excessive, but beautiful.”
I follow her inside, watching as she expertly trims the stems and arranges them in a large vase. Her movements are practiced, efficient. She makes it look easy.
“So,” she says, not looking at me. “Last night was intense.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop apologizing. I’m fine. A little shaken up, but fine.” She finishes with the roses and turns to face me. “I’m more worried about you. That explosion was close. And you ran toward it.”
“It was my responsibility.”
“Your responsibility?” She tilts her head, studying me. “Alessandro, what do you really do? And please don’t tell me you import olive oil, because olive oil importers don’t carry guns or run toward explosions.”
This is it. The moment where I should tell her the truth. Where I should explain exactly what kind of man I am and give her the chance to run.
“It’s complicated,” I say instead.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
She sighs, then seems to make a decision. “Okay. You don’t want to talk about it right now, I get it. But eventually, Alessandro, you’re going to have to trust me with the truth. Because I really like you, and I can’t keep dating someone who’s hiding something this big.”
She likes me. The words do something warm and dangerous to my chest.
“I will,” I promise. “I’ll tell you everything. Just, not tonight. Tonight, I want to take you to dinner and try to have a normal date. If you’ll still go with me after I abandoned you last night.”
“Of course I’ll go with you.” She reaches out and touches my arm, and even through the layers of my suit, I feel it like a brand. “But can I just change quickly? I didn’t realize we were doing fancy dinner. I thought maybe pizza or something casual.”
I look down at my suit, then at her jeans and sweater. “You look perfect.”
“Alessandro, you’re wearing Armani. I’m wearing Target. There’s a slight disparity here.”
“I don’t care what you wear.”
“But I do.” She’s already moving toward the stairs. “Give me ten minutes. There’s coffee in the pot if you want some.”
She disappears upstairs before I can protest, leaving me standing in her flower shop surrounded by the smell of roses and pine.
I pull out my phone and text Marco:She thinks I overdid it.
His response is immediate:You THINK? Boss, you look like you’re taking her to meet the Pope, not to dinner.
