“That’s it?”
“Please,” he said with a scoff. “I can smell Lachlan’s pissed-off before he says ‘Ye bloody furry arse,’ which only makes it more fun when—”
The table went quiet.
Dead silent.
“You can smell... feelings?”
He tried to shrug, but it came strangled. “I mean. In a way?”
So if he could smell all that... If he could smell everything, including feelings, then the little betrayals of her own body, all the times she’d been warmed up by him—plenty, oh so plenty and deeply—were suddenly shamefully, overwhelmingly obvious.
Every quickened breath.
Every spike of heat.
Every traitorous pulse low in her belly when he leaned too close.
She’d seen him casually sniff. Had he known? Had he always known?
Her stomach dropped so fast it was almost painful. There was no coming back from that kind of embarrassment. She wanted to vanish. Very much drop dead. Preferably immediately, before her face melted clean off.
He had the decency to glue his eyes to the menu as he cleared his throat. “So, um... I hear the meat pie is very good. Ever tried it?”
She stared at him.
Meat pie.
Meat pie.
He was giving her an exit. A bridge made up of pastry and ground meat.
There wasn’t going to be any smirk, or tease, or anything. He was pretending nothing had happened, protecting her pride the way he would protect her body. And that made it worse because now she was grateful, furious, and mortified all at once, and it was a lot to deal with on an empty stomach.
She straightened in her chair, fighting mad at herself and clawing at that lifeline for dear life. It was that, or get up and leave. “Yes,” she said, a little too quickly, then forced herself to breathe. “I mean. I’ve heard it’s good.”
Her fingers curled around her glass. “I suppose we should order it,” she added, aiming forcomposedand landing somewhere nearstrained academic.
She did not look at him when she said it.
If he smiled again, she might combust. And if he didn’t... She wasn’t sure which would be worse.
He didn’t smile, but he managed to make eye contact with a waiter and put in an order for their food. Or she thought he had. Her ears were ringing a lot, so she was going to have a surprise for dinner, hopefully involving that meat pie. When the waiter left, she excused herself and went to the bathroom because she really needed a moment with herself.
And, for the record, she did not eyeball the toilet to see if she could put her head in it and drown herself. She thought about it, sure—briefly entertained the notion—but then she had a big-girl talk with the mirror and realized that her shop would be orphaned, so no. No drowning in the bathroom. So, since there was literally nothing she could do short of running away—and on that subject, the bathroom windows were way too small for her hips—she would have to pretend like nothing happened. Rex already showed her he wasn’t going to press it, so at this point, pivoting away was on her.
And pivot she would.
She marched back to their booth, sat, and completely ignored the pang of fluttered attraction when he smiled at her, almost apologetic, like her hormonal riot was somehow his fault. Which, actually, kinda was, because he had no business looking like that, no businessbeinglike that, but she couldn’t really fault him much. Nottoomuch, anyway.
Now, all she needed was a new topic that she could latch onto.
“You live at your grandfather’s house?”
And there he went again, the big bad wolf to the rescue. She meant the smile this time and nodded. “I do. It wouldn’t make sense to move, even though the house is a little too big for just me. But he left it to me along with the shop, and...” She shrugged. “Those are all pieces of him I don’t feel like giving up.”
“Some things are not meant to be given up.”
