‘I don’t know. What can you offer me?’
Sean angled his chair facing Cherry’s, his feet planted apart, the heavy weight of his kilt preventing things getting explicit, although he already knew he wanted explicit with this woman. He wanted everything with her. The sex, the dances where he held her, watching her win poker games, taking her home to meet his family. Hell, he was ready to take her around this room and meet them right now.
‘I’ll tell you what I can offer you, Cherry. Instead of kicking you out for crashing my brother’s wedding, I’m going to ask you to stay as my plus-one. We can talk and dance some more. Maybe we’ll find a quiet elevator. Tomorrow, I’ll take you for breakfast. Then, if you’re lucky and I’m lucky, you can marry the love of your life, who will also be wearing a kilt. Not in Vegas but at City Hall, which is like Vegas but with more class and fewer Elvises.’ Sean worked hard not to mirror Cherry’s smile. Did that mean she was keen? Who knew he did such a fine line in romantic hyperbole? He continued, ‘Then you can move back to Scotland with me, where I’ll teach you to surf, take you to a secluded waterfall that I know and get you a kitten.’ Possibly he was going over the top, but she was enjoying it. ‘That’ll cover about five points on your list. Oh, and you can put a wee star next to all of them, in case you were wondering.’
She burst out laughing. ‘If you do say so yourself.’
‘I’m only going on what I’ve been told.’ Did that sound big-headed? Hopefully, she would know he was playing it for laughs.
Cherry shuffled her seat close to Sean’s, so her knees were hitting the front of his chair. She leaned her hands on his knees, her own apparent delight mirroring the amazement Sean was experiencing.
‘I have a hunch it’s the truth,’ she said. ‘Guess I’ll find out in the elevator or on our wedding night – whichever comes first.’
Holy smokes. She wasn’t exactly batting back his idea.
‘If we get married, I’ll keep my surname,’ she added, jumping way ahead of any considerations Sean had.
‘Of course. Why leave paradise behind?’
‘I should have put “sex with a whisky heir” on my list.’
‘Ach, I’m not a whisky heir. I just make the barrels they put the stuff in. My brother Jamie runs the show now.’
‘Ah, a cooper. That would explain the biceps.’ Cherry leaned forward and squeezed Sean’s arm again, the heat from her small hand shooting to behind the scenes of his sporran. He would need to be careful, although something told him Cherry wouldn’t mind if it became obvious what she did to him.
‘I could marry a man with arms like these,’ she said.
‘If you’re lucky, I might let you,’ Sean joked, knowing that he’d be the lucky one if anything as outrageous as marrying this woman came to be.
Chapter 2
Cherry
Cherry might just have met the man of her dreams.
Including dreams she’d forgotten she ever had. Wangling her way into a random Scottish wedding this evening, because of the promise of men in kilts and the long-forgotten feeling of home, was only meant to be a ten-minute thing. Cross another item off the bucket list by standing metaphorically on the solid Scottish land her bones understood. Give them a small break from the restlessness of the road.
But now she was thinking about forever with this guy. This kilted man who felt like sex and the safety of home at once. The kind who had her reaching for something to steady herself the second she saw him, so rattled she nearly toppled into the buffet table and pretended it was intentional by grabbing the first thing she saw – vol-au-vents.
And the way he talked, he made it sound like all the fantasies on her list could become a reality of his making. He said yes to so many things. Didn’t hold back. Cherry needed that in her life.
Surely all this was insane. You didn’t think aboutforever with someone you’d met an hour ago. Her mum had with her dad, but Cherry wasn’t like her mother. She dealt in practicalities – decisions made by consulting probability and consequences – while her mother operated on whispers from the universe. Cherry played poker. Her mum read tarot cards. One was real, and you won from skill and odds calculation; the other was mystical waffle. For years, she had used her maths degree and psychology to make poker her full-time job. Yet so many people saw it as less than tarot.
But the universe was whispering something to her about Sean Butler. What would her mother’s tarot cards say about this? Would she see forever in them? Would they bring up an indication of marriage – such as the Lovers or the Empress – or something more ominous, like the Scythe, pointing to caution over making rash decisions?
For goodness’ sake, Cherry. Examine the evidence and make a rational decision, like you do at the poker table.
But Cherry’s emotional compass was spinning like a roulette wheel. North could be anywhere. Although, something about Sean Butler felt like a giant magnetic pull towards a place her needle could rest awhile.
Maybe forever.
They danced some more, stopped and refreshed themselves with champagne. Laughed a lot – about what she wasn’t exactly sure, but Sean made her abs ache in a very good way.
The one thing she hadn’t done much of was eat. The room was spinning, and Cherry knew as she excused herself to go to the bathroom that, even in trainers, she was teetering. But no way was she going to bed.The frustration of the tournament she’d crashed out of was mellowing into the background, helped by champagne and Sean Butler. Thewords of her ex as she lost her final stack – ‘You’re a busted flush, Cherry’ – weren’t ringing so hard in her ears.
After reapplying her lipstick, Cherry spritzed perfume onto her hair and on the pulse points on her neck.
For a moment, she stood outside the ballroom, concealed from its occupants. What if she didn’t go back in? Ignored the starlight in her brain and went to bed? She’d wake up in the morning, drink some orange juice and go for a walk in Central Park. Maybe go to the gym. Get refreshed and screw her head back on for tomorrow’s tournament.
