Holy shit, I think this woman will always put me on my back foot. Regardless of how confident I pretend to feel, she will always take my breath away.
She looks gorgeous; her strawberry blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders and minimal makeup affect me more than any dolled-up version of her she thinks will garner attention. My eyes trail down and see she’s in a pale-yellow sundress with some straw-colored heels. I’m sure they call those something particular, but hell if I know what that is.
I look up and see her gaze looking down my body, and when she meets my eyes again, the pure heat in them makes me think we’ll be okay.
“So, dinner?” I ask.
“Yep. Yep, dinner. I’m ready.” She walks toward the door, grabbing her purse on the way.
“You have anywhere specific you want to go?” I ask, knowing she probably has, at a minimum, a few places she wants to go.
“I do, but I’ll be honest. I don’t really want to walk all over kingdom come for food. I’m starving.”
“Perfect. We can just walk around the little restaurant center they have here and find something.”
We make it to the elevator easily enough, although the restraint it took to not lead her with my hand on her back almost killed me.
The elevator ride is silent. I’m not sure why she is, but I’m desperately trying to calm my dick down and force blood back to my head so I’m able to think clearly. Her smell—somehow, she still smells like wildflowers—is surrounding me, and it’s a damn aphrodisiac.
We finally get to the lobby, and I steer her to the side with all the restaurants.
“Holy shit, how many are there?” she asks.
“A lot.” I let out a chuckle. “I think every big hotel has at least twenty restaurants now. It makes it hard to pick sometimes.”
“No kidding.” She’s looking around in wonder, and I swear I’ll take her to every restaurant she wants to keep her happy.
“So, what’s your favorite food?” she asks as we walk along the hallway of restaurants.
“Hmm, that’s hard to narrow down. But I do love homemade gnocchi with just a simple, spicy marinara. It’s classic but so hard to get right.”
“Sounds delicious. Oh my God,” she whispers.
“What?” I look around, trying to figure out what’s wrong.
“Julián Serrano…TheJulián Serrano has a restaurant here.” She’s still whispering.
I look around and find the restaurant she’s talking about.
“The tapas place? Does that sound good?”
“Good? It sounds phenomenal!”
“Okay, let’s go then.”
“What? No! I’m not dressed to go somewhere that fancy.Are you kidding me?”
I stop in the middle of the large hallway and spin her by the shoulders to look at me.
“You are beautiful. You could be wearing a damn sweatsuit, and no one would care. We’re going to go eat at the tapas place, and we’re going to enjoy the hell out of it, okay?”
She nods and I take her hand, leading her to the restaurant.
“Good evening. How many are in your party tonight?” the hostess asks.
“Two, please.”
“It’ll be a bit of a wait for a table, but the bar is free if you’d rather not wait.”
