“What are you talking about? I’m a great chef.”
I grab the notecard from his hands. “Are you sure you can read? I don’t see oranges anywhere on the list of ingredients.”
“I made a substitution.” Ryan crosses his arms defensively, which only makes his frilly apron look more ridiculous.
“Where the hell did you get this?” I tug at the ruffle at the bottom.
“I got it at the White Elephant two years ago. I thought it looked Valentine’s Day appropriate.”
“It does.” I wrap my arms around his waist, burying my nose against a part of the apron with an embroidered bunny on it. “Ryan, I love you. So, so much. I would throw myself off a cliff for you. I would shave my head for you. I’d even take the middle seat in the back row of a twenty-hour flight for you. But one thing I cannot and will not do is let you poison me with your beef sludge.”
“Fine. I guess you can have some chocolate to tide you over.” He gestures to the table, where there’s an expensive looking bottle of red wine decanting next to a few boxes of chocolate.
I kiss him on the cheek. “Just when I thought I couldn’t love you more.”
When I open one of the chocolate boxes, I recognize a familiar logo—the same one from the resort in Puerto Rico. We got complimentary chocolates at the hotel, and I raved to Ryan about how delicious they were. He must have had them send them special for me. I pop one into my mouth, moaning at the rich taste. “Ohgod,these are good.”
I fully expect Ryan to say something flirty in response, but instead, he’s frowning down at his phone. I wave my hand in front of his face.
“Hello, Ryan?”
“Sorry.” He shoves his phone in his pocket. “Just a text from James.”
“You look like he just told you he’s canceling your favorite show. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he insists, and I sigh.
“Ryan, I wasatpoker night this week. James didn’t say a word. I know something’s up.”
“James never was a big talker.”
“Luke was throwing peanuts at him, trying to get him to talk. Everyone thinks James is acting weird, and I thinkyouknow why.” I poke him in the chest for good measure, and Ryan sighs.
“Look, James doesn’t want the other guys to know yet.”
“I’m not the other guys, and I’m very good at keeping a secret. Please?” I give him my best puppy dog eyes. “Give me the gossip. It’s Valentine’s Day.”
He groans. Since we started dating, I’ve learned just how powerful my puppy dog eyes are. “Fine. But you tellnobody, not even Cat and Brinley, you hear me?”
I cross my heart. “I swear. Now spill.”
“Okay. So you know the company Pages? The bookseller?”
I roll my eyes. “Ryan,everyoneknows Pages. I get all my eBooks on their app.”
“Right. So James made this deal with the Pages CEO. Sequel and Pages are going to join up for an integrated app that lets you access TV, movies, and books all in one device. Plus, James will get the rights for all of Pages’ most popular books so he can turn them into shows.”
I swirl my wine in my glass. “I mean, that’s cool and all. But it’s not good gossip.”
“So there’s a catch. The Pages CEO has one daughter, unmarried. He wants a grandson to continue his name and eventually take over the company. So James has to…”
Ryan gestures vaguely with his hands, and I gape at him. “He’s gettingmarriedto some random woman?”
“You haven’t heard the craziest part. James only gets a year to put a baby in this guy’s daughter, or the whole deal is off.”
My mouth drops open. “That’s insane. What kind of Henry the Eighth bullshit is this? An arranged marriage and a mandated pregnancy? Did we just skip backward in history, right past women’s rights?”
Ryan unties his frilly apron and tosses it over the back of a chair. “That’s what I thought at first. But I thought about it and it kind of works for James. You know him—cold, clinical, business-y.”
