Nana paid the ridiculousness no heed. “I should check on the silent auction,” she said. “You two get acquainted. I’ll trust you to take care of my Hazel, Ignatius.”
Ignatius opened his mouth, perhaps intending to answer. But Nana swept away before he could say a thing. The puppy chose that exact moment to sneeze directly into Ignatius’s face.
Oh God. I should look away. Pretend I didn’t see that. But he honestly didn’t seem to care. He patted the puppy’s head and said, “Bless you.”
Then, he turned his attention to me like nothing had happened. “Now that we’re alone… I have to thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I’m aware this is a little old-fashioned, but when I tasted one of your truffles… Well, I just knew I had to meet you.”
Heat flooded my neck and crept up to my cheeks. He’d complimented my work first. Not my dress. Not my hair. Not some other polite nonsense. He’d started with my chocolates.
That was… unexpected. And kind of perfect.
The puppy launched itself from his arms toward my chest. I caught it on instinct, suddenly holding a wiggling ball of fur that seemed determined to lick my face. “Cooking has always been my passion,” I told my date.Now, it was my turn to try to maintain my composure. I wasn’t sure I was being as efficient as Ignatius.
“Tell me,” Ignatius prodded. “Is that what made you go into this business? Your passion for cooking?”
Few people had ever asked me that question. Most just made their own assumptions. It was refreshing to see Ignatius show interest. “Yes and no. I just wanted to bring people joy.”
The words came out simpler than I’d intended, like I was confessing rather than explaining. God, I sounded like a beauty pageant contestant. World peace and chocolate for everyone.
“That’s a very ambitious goal in this day and age. People might say the most ambitious.”
“Maybe,” I replied. “But I’ve tasted too many joyless desserts. Made by people who forgot why they started baking in the first place. I don’t want to be that person.”
“And are you?” His voice dropped lower, more intimate. “That person?”
I thought about the past week. The way I’d thrown myself into recipe testing because I needed my hands busy and my brain quiet. The cookies I’d made for tonight that felt more like obligation than love. The hollow satisfaction of perfect tempering and precise measurements that meant nothing when my heart wasn’t in it.
“I’m trying not to be.”
The puppy squirmed in my arms, bored with my face. It leapt out of my arms and immediately launched an assault on Ignatius’s shoes. Within seconds, it had one of his laces undone and was working on the second with impressive speed.
I crouched beside him, ostensibly to help wrangle the puppy. Up close, his cologne was expensive and subtle. Something with cedar and maybe bergamot. The kind of scent that probably came in a bottle with a French name I couldn’t pronounce.
“I’m sure that whatever you decide to try, you always succeed, Hazel.”
It was the first time he had called me by my first name. His hand brushed mine as we both reached for the puppy at the same time. I waited for the spark. The flutter. The rush of attraction that was supposed to come with an attractive man touching you at a romantic event.
Nothing.
Just the awareness that our hands were touching. The frustration that neither of us had managed to save his shoelaces.
The puppy, offended by our interference, transferred its attention to my shoes. It grabbed the ankle strap of my heel and pulled with shocking strength for a creature that weighed less than five pounds.
“These are new.” I tried to extract my foot without falling over or flashing everyone. The red dress was not designed for crouching on lawns while wrestling puppies.
“So are mine.” Ignatius shrugged, taking in the chaos with remarkable calm. “I’ve learned to accept that dignity is optional when dogs are involved.”
The terrier, feeling left out, joined the fray. Now I had two dogs attacking my shoes while Ignatius and I crouched on the lawn like we were defusing a bomb.
This was the least romantic romantic moment I’d ever experienced.
And somehow, that made it worse. Because Ignatius was handling it with grace and good humor. He wasn’t panicking or turning green with stress. He was charming and smooth and knew exactly what to say while puppies literally destroyed our clothing.
He was everything a blind date should be.
But I still found myself thinking about Brok.
I missed the awkwardness. The earnest confusion. The way he looked at me like I was a problem he desperately wanted to solve but had no idea how to approach. The flush that crept up his neck when I got too close. The careful distance he maintained like I was made of something precious and breakable.
