Page 73 of Unapologetic Love Story

He was good. More than good, she noticed. He was adept. He diced and prepped and moved about her kitchen with a comfortable confidence.

‘This is rather impressive,’ she remarked. ‘I thought it was all a weird ruse but you actually seem to know what you’re doing.’

‘I’m very serious about impressing you.’

Raina enjoyed watching him. ‘It smells good.’

He turned to look at her and it was slow and deliberate. He stepped closer and she moved her legs apart to accommodate him. He pushed her long fall of hair over her shoulder and pressed his face into her neck.

It took all of Raina’s discipline for her to lean back and smirk. ‘I never do anything, or anyone, on an empty stomach.’

Heat flashed in his eyes but he threw his head back and laughed. It was an unbelievable sound, one Raina could never have thought possible of the cagey, sardonic person she’d met in the museum.

She laughed as well, the sound only faltering when his face grew serious and his hands were on her waist. She let out a breath of air, which caused a stray strand of hair to fall against her face. He tucked it back.

‘Happy birthday, Raina.’

Raina looked at him. Staring in the way you were always told not to. She’d loved watching people as a small child. Meggie had been astronomically strict about it, fearful of Raina doing anything that might signal to others that she was different. But she loved observing people’s different ways of being. The way their body language changed when they were listening to music with headphones on. The way they changed when coming into contact with other people.

Raina was fascinated by behaviour, mostly because she’d been told she was doing it wrong her entire life.

Now, as she stared openly at Tom Branimir’s face, she was grateful more than ever for being neurodivergent. It meant seeing every detail in bright, beautiful clarity. It meant feeling every touch a thousand times more intensely.

I can see every beautiful bit of you. In a way so many others can’t.

‘What is it?’ Tom asked.

‘Nothing,’ Raina said. ‘I’m just . . . remembering you.’

She didn’t know how else to put it, but the words made his face crease into a smile.

‘I’ve never known anyone like you.’

He said it so quietly. So full of incredulity. Raina said nothing. She’d heard it before. In many different tones. Horror. Confusion. But never with the slight tinge of wonder and desire she could now hear in Tom’s voice.

‘I’m actually very ordinary.’

‘Ah, Raina, I just don’t get it.’

‘What?’

He was examining her. His eyes drank her in with hunger and amused disbelief. ‘I’ve spent the past few years chasing people who pretend. Ordinary, small people who told extraordinary lies in order to manipulate and extort.’

Raina hummed a noise of disapproval. ‘You’re so uncharitable, Tom.’

‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you . . . You, Raina, I just don’t get.’

‘Yes, you’ve mentioned.’

‘Let me just get this out.’

For the first time, he seemed incapable of formulating his thoughts. It was unlike him. Raina slid off the island and made her way through to the living room, taking her drink with her. He followed, sitting beside her on the sofa with a gaze that was too intense.

‘Raina, you said yesterday that you knew exactly why I crossed the floor at that dinner. But you were wrong.’

‘Please,’ she said quietly, placing her drink on the coffee table with a slightly shaking hand. ‘You saw a story.’

‘No. That was an excuse to talk to you. An excuse to shut up everyone at my table. I told myself it was work; it was professional curiosity. Told myself that for some time.’