My hands tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “I like him too,” I told the empty car.
Duh.
Sometimes I had to say the most obvious things out loud before I believed them. But the truth was, I liked Vann. I really liked him.
But so, what? I’d had crushes since… since I stopped dating. They’d never pursued me like this though. They’d never gotten me to sleep with them.
They’d never crawled so completely beneath my skin all I could think about was them.
Was it worth trying something with Vann?
What if I just… went for it?
I used to be spontaneous. I used to be wild and reckless and devil-may-care.
And it had gotten me into trouble. When I’d walked away from that lifestyle, I promised myself I would never do anything haphazardly again. I would never jump into something without gauging how deep the water was. I would never walk out on a limb without knowing if it could hold me. I would never just act and hope it worked out.
Never again.
Bianca was the closest thing I’d done in the last six years to an uncalculated risk, but I’d been weighing my options for almost the same amount of time. Even if the final decision was sort of thrust on me, it had been an internal conversation for years.
And what about Vann? Surely I didn’t need another six years to decide if I wanted to take a chance on him or not.
He was a risk—the biggest kind.
But was he worth it?
My mind said no. My mind remembered the consequences from my life before. My mind knew how badly men could hurt, how easily they could destroy.
My heart argued a different story.
There was just something about him that I wanted more of. I couldn’t help it. Vann Delane was different. And I wanted to get to know everything about him.
Including what he was really like in bed.
Eighteen
Vann was everywhere after that.Or maybe I hadn’t noticed him before. Maybe he’d been in my life for a while, but I’d been so focused on surviving that I hadn’t paid attention to him.
Regardless, he was here now.
When Vera and Killian got back from their honeymoon, he was at the airport to greet them. When I joined Molly for spin class three mornings a week, he was there. When I went to the organic grocery store near my house, he was there. Picking up more oranges.
And the worst part? It was impossible to ignore the man. Not when he looked so adorably happy to see his sister. Or so deliciously sweaty after an hour of medieval-leg-and-butt-torture. And especially not when he carefully picked out his oranges, bringing each one to his nose and smelling them to make sure he was getting a good one.
Trust me, I tried to ignore him. And pretend I didn’t see him. But it was impossible. He was everywhere.
But most especially he was in my bones, in my very blood.
Because even when I didn’t see him, I thought about him.
I thought about him in the morning, when I woke up way earlier than I wanted to. I thought about him during prep, when I would have to get tough with an employee or make a hard decision. I thought about him when I went home to a lonely bed and empty apartment. I thought about him when I got a hit on my online dating app that Kaya had set me up with a year ago and I never used, and it wasn’t him.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The only time I managed to think about anything else was when I was planning the dishes for our soon-to-open brunch menu. Then, and only then, could I wrap my head around grilled asparagus wrapped in paper thin slices of heirloom tomatoes and rich prosciutto. He couldn’t infiltrate my poached egg in sourdough with sriracha hollandaise and everything bagel seasoning. Nor could he come close to my version of a croque madame with grapefruit jelly, crispy pork belly, creamy comté, and an over easy egg on brioche.
Casual French food was the only thing saving my life right now. Both personally and professionally.
