“Is that a proposal?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. I growl and push at his chest again, and he laughs. “Nah, tell Oscar I’m his for a little longer.”
An embarrassingly telling sense of relief floods my chest, and I bite my lip in an effort to keep my reaction neutral. “Oh, well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
He shrugs, his expression still oddly buoyant.
“What happened?” I ask, pulling my knees up to wrap my arms around them and already feeling guilty for secretly hoping she wasn’t the love of his life.
“Well, Tenley had introduced me to Gianna a few weeks ago?—”
“Wait, I thought your date’s name was Cecelia?” I furrow my brow in confusion.
He shakes his head. “I told you, I had no intentions of letting Heath set me up.”
“But … Cecelia’s perfect for you,” I protest.
“No, she’s not,” he says plainly.
“You don’t know that unless you at least give her a shot.”
Why am I defending this chick again?
He chuckles softly. “Idoknow that, because Ihavegiven her a shot before.”
“Wait, what?”
“Cecelia and I went on a date about a year ago. She’s Marigold’s husband’s cousin, and they insisted on setting us up. So I took her on a brunch date after Mass one Sunday, kissed her at the end of it and everything,” he explains, still looking completely nonplussed.
“Oh.” I may have joked about it earlier, but I’m too breathless at the thought of him kissing another woman to say anything else right away, especially since it all sounds so idyllic, soRowan.
“Did it not go well?” I ask cautiously once I’ve gotten my shit together again.
“She was nice, but there wasn’t …” He shakes his head as he trails off. “It just wasn’t there. I mean, we agreed that we were probably compatible enough to make do, but Cecelia was actually the one who said neither of us should be settling fornice.”
“That makes sense,” I reply when he looks at me as if he wants my reassurance.
“I left the date feeling disappointed, but she was right. The old me might have been perfectly satisfied withnice, had I never …” He leaves his gaze locked onto mine as he lets me fill in the blanks, and my stomach dips.
“I never imagined chemistry would be so important to me until I actually felt it.” He swallows hard, and my cheeks heat as I watch his throat work. “But now, I don’t think I’ll be able to settle for anything less.”
“And … what about Gianna?” I ask breathlessly.
A grin spreads across his face. “I didn’t actually go out with Gianna, but I did meet a real beauty named Adele.”
“What?” I practically shriek and throw a pillow at him. “Athanasius Rowan, how many girls are you stringing along at the same time?”
He tosses his head back and laughs, looking more like me this time, and Oscar and Frankie yip along with him.
“Adele is the baby girl I helped deliver tonight,” he says, gesturing over his scrubs. “And Gianna is her mother. She and her husband Jonas wanted a VBAC, so Tenley asked me to be on standby in case she’d end up needing an emergency C-section. It’s been a while since I attended a delivery, but thankfully, everything went well. I actually enjoyed it more than I expected.”
“Oh,” I say again. “That’s great. But … you didn’t go on any actual dates tonight?”
He shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “No. I don’t need to go out looking for what I’ve already found.”
“But aren’t you still worried about confusing lust with chemistry?” I barely manage to say. As much as I enjoy being wanted by him, I can’t bear the thought of being the reason he passes up his best chance at getting the family he’s been longing for.
He frowns. “I’d be lying if I said I was immune to lust, particularly when it comes to you. But I know the difference now.”
So why is he still looking at me like he wants to do very, very lust-driven things together?
