“Are you ready for our next adventure?”
“There’s more?”
Tenny smiles, a mischievous gleam in his eye.
I can only imagine what he cooked up for after-dinner entertainment. Horseback riding? Or maybe a helicopter tour of the skyline? Whatever it is, it’s probably over the top, which…after years of concentrating on nothing but work, is exactly the kind of chaos I didn’t know I needed. I’ve felt more light and relaxed tonight than I have in months.
“By all means”—I gesture toward the exit—“lead the way.”
Once we’re within a few feet of his remotely started truck, my brows crinkle. It sounds like two women with English accents are speaking at full volume from within his cab.
“I will have nothing to do with that scoundrel. How dare you suggest it.”
With a sigh, my sister collapses onto the settee, utterly disregarding all notions of propriety.
“Come now, Minerva. It is a truth universally acknowledged that reformed rakes make the best husbands.”
Tenny tugs his arm from mine to snatch his phone out of his breast pocket, nearly fumbling it before sliding open the screen and hitting pause on an audiobook app. I get a flash of a woman in Regency dress glaring at a man with a half-undone cravat and devilish smile before Tenny shoves his phone into his pants pocket.
“Sorry about that.”
The way he mumbles the apology paired with how the tips of his ears seem to pink in the wan streetlight makes something tug deep in my chest.
“Should I ask?”
He shakes his head, not meeting my eyes. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Later?”
Tenny’s large sigh takes all of his energy with it. “Not even then.”
I hum, putting a mental pin in the topic but dropping the subject for now.
“This has been really fun,” I tell him once we’re on the road. “I’ve been so focused on my job that I’ve kind of forgotten how nice it is to get out every once in a while.”
“If you did this more regularly, you wouldn’t have to invent a fake boyfriend,” he says with a teasing smile.
I give him a pinched glare. “At least I knew this would be a good date…given your very well-documented experience and all.”
His jaw tightens. “I see we’re back to this again.”
“I guess so.”
My mind can’t seem to set it down. The idea of Tenny being careless with relationships doesn’t seem in line with his loving personality and how well he treats everyone. Plus, Tenny has two sisters and a strong relationship with his mother. Generally, men raised understanding the high value of women tend not to belittle them.
“It just seems…incongruent,” I say.
Tenny nods, silent for a few beats. “You’re good at getting to the bottom of things. What do you think is the truth?”
Twelve keeps flashing in my mind—all the women he dated his second year.
“I’m struggling with the sheer number of women.”
Tenny rubs at his beard scruff with a nasally exhale.
“Let me ask you this. Do you think it’s reasonable to have—let’s say twelve—first dates in a year?
My skin pinpricks that his mind went to the same place mine already was. “First dates, as in no second date? No follow-up at all? No dating them while also dating other women?”
