“Stay where?”
“With me.”
“A week? Unless you plan to kick me out sooner.”
“I’d never kick you out, but I wouldn’t say no to a second date.”
“Okay, but somewhere quieter, and after Chase and I come back from Japan.”
She said yes. Nolan wanted to punch the air. “You’re going to Japan?”
“Chase trains at a dojo there, and I like the food. Plus the people are nice. Polite. Your internet is too slow.”
“Huh?”
“At the vineyard. I’ll need to fix that.”
“So you can spend more time there?”
For the first time, she looked uncertain. “Unless you don’t want me to?”
Nolan reached for her hand again. “Tell me what you need, and we’ll make it happen.”
She’d want some space of her own. An office. A Batcave. There were rooms in the older part of the house he could refurbish to free up the guest wing—his grandma’s old sewing room next to the study, or even the dusty library—and presumably Chase would come too.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
Nolan dropped his spoon and sank to his knees beside Alexa’s seat, pulling her into a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and for a moment, the noise of the restaurant melted away. It was just the two of them and a hazy future stretching out ahead, a future with one cast-iron certainty.
Alexa Stone was his.
And he was hers.
Maybe she didn’t know it yet, but she was smart—she’d work it out eventually.
“Look at that guy,” the guy in the blue golf shirt jeered. “He’s pussy whipped.”
“If he was a real man, the woman would be on her knees,” one of his friends called.
“Probably gay,” another wiseass added, and Nolan felt anger flare as he scrambled to his feet.
Alexa grabbed his hand. “Don’t.”
“I’ve had enough of his fucking mouth.”
“Revenge is a dish best served with coffee.”
“What?”
“Sit down and wait. I promise you won’t regret it.”
Slowly, Nolan did as she instructed. He waited. He ordered coffee. He watched Alexa smiling happily as she sipped a macchiato while the asshole in the golf shirt cursed out his car in the parking lot. It wouldn’t unlock. Not a flash, not a bleep. It was just dead. The guy kicked a tyre and cursed some more.
“Did you do that?”
“That model is heavily reliant on electronics. The manufacturer has remote access so they can brick the vehicle if the lessee falls behind on their car payments, and the system has more than one security flaw.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I love you.”
