He leads me through the house, and I try not to gawk at everything. The artwork on the walls. The floor-to-ceilingwindows overlooking a perfectly landscaped backyard. The kitchen that looks like it belongs in a cooking show.
Ethan pulls a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and hands it to me, along with a glass. I can’t help but smile. It’s the same water I shopped for. I judged him hard as I put it in the cart at the store. The water costs what half of my grocery budget for the week is.
"Thank you," I say again, because apparently that's all I'm capable of saying around him.
"Let's sit." He gestures toward a breakfast nook with a built-in bench and a table that's already covered in notebooks and a laptop.
I slide into the bench, and he sits across from me.
For a moment, we just look at each other. This isn’t awkward. Not at all.
He's even more attractive in the soft evening light. There's a slight shadow of stubble along his jaw, and his eyes are this incredible shade of gray-blue that reminds me of the ocean before a storm.
Focus, Lily.
"So," I say, pulling out my own notebook. "Tell me about your mom and sister."
Ethan leans back, and I watch the way his shoulders shift under the henley. "My mother's name is Diane. She's turning seventy, as I mentioned. She looks like she’s about fifty, however. She’s a retired nurse. She raised me and my siblings mostly on her own after my father passed when I was sixteen."
"I'm sorry," I say softly.
He nods. "She's strong. Stubborn. She loves gardening, old movies, and meddling in my personal life."
I smile. "Sounds like a good mom."
"The best." There's so much warmth in his voice that it makes my chest ache. "My sister is Claire. She's turning forty, a highschool English teacher. She's brilliant, sarcastic, and has never met a book she didn't devour in one sitting."
"A reader," I say, perking up. "That's perfect. I can work with that." If I know anything, I know about books.
Ethan watches me with interest. "You sound excited."
"I love books. I'm part of a book club, actually. We read romance novels and drink wine and talk about fictional men who probably don't exist."
His mouth quirks. "Probably?"
"I'm holding out hope."
The air between us shifts. Just slightly. But I feel it.
He clears his throat. "Before we dive into planning, I have something for you."
He reaches into a bag beside him and pulls out my book.
The book.
The one with the half-naked man and the very obvious Daddy Dom vibes.
Oh God.
"You forgot this yesterday," Ethan says, sliding it across the table.
My face is on fire. "I didn't forget it. I-I-I took it with me." I realize I’m stammering. But I swear, when he pulled it out of the bag, I grabbed it.
"You took one." He taps the cover. "This was still in the grocery bag."
I want to crawl under the table and die. Of course it was. They were stacked together. The one I’d just finished and the one I was about to start. I wonder what color my face is, I feel it flaming from the inside out. "I'm so sorry. I swear I don't usually?—"
"Lily." His voice is calm. Steady. "It's fine. I'm not judging you."
