Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
He nodded. “I get what you mean. My events are always better when the client participates in the planning and trusts me to get it done.”
“That’s the other thing that I like about going the private route, the menu planning. The variety. I wouldn’t be cooking parts of the same twenty dishes every night.”
He took another bite of his dinner. “Again, I get it.” His tone was warm as he pointed to himself. “Big fan of planning right here.”
We were quiet for a moment, simply enjoying each other’s company.
“Can I ask you something?” A voice inside my head warned me not to do it, but I ignored it. “The girl you went on the date with. She was really pretty. How come you don’t want to see her again?”
If there’d been a whiff of jealousy in my question, he hadn’t noticed. He picked up his glass and took a sip while he considered how to answer. “I didn’t know her when I asked her out, so I didn’t realize we had nothing in common. There was no,” he searched for the word, “spark, which sounds dumb, but it was true. I figured that out too late. Colin and I had just landed Troy’s agency as a new account, and that girl? She’s the owner’s daughter.”
The sting was immediate. “You asked her out?”
He looked, of all things, embarrassed. “Okay, yeah. I told you I don’t date, but that was a while ago. Things have changed.”
Let it go, Sydney.
But I couldn’t. “How so?”
Thankfully, my tone sounded more curious than anything else, and it made Preston shrug. “Back then, I didn’t want anything serious. Now that school’s over, things are different. All my friends have already found, like, their person. Colin, and Troy, and Cassidy—”
His expression abruptly went blank.
Her name had rolled off his tongue with ease, and it seemed he’d surprised himself. It certainly surprised me that he still considered her a friend after everything.
Or maybe his stunned look was caused by something else. Was he coming to terms with the idea that Cassidy’s person . . . was his dad?
His gaze dropped to his plate, and he pushed the silverware around, straightening the place setting while trying to hide his discomfort.
“I remember what that was like.” His voice wasn’t as normal. “Having someone you want all the time.” He made a face, displeased with himself. “I don’t just mean sex, either. Someone you want to be around all the time.”
When his focus lifted back to me, everything went still.
“I miss that,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like I might not ever get to feel that way again.” He frowned, and irritation edged his brown eyes. “It doesn’t help that the girl I’ve spent the last year thinking about is off-limits.”
His statement sent a shock wave through my body, and even he wasn’t immune to the effects of his truth bomb. It was obvious he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and panic streaked through his expression.
The silence stretched between us until it was taut, and as fragile as a souffle. Could he hear my heart as it thundered in my chest?
I barely whispered the question. “You spent the last year thinking about me?”
Abruptly, he moved. He stabbed his fork into the plate, picked up the last bite of a ravioli, and eyed it with suspicion. “What’d you put in this? Truth serum?”
“Preston.” When he lifted his gaze, my words tumbled out in a rush. “I thought about you all the time, too.”
He didn’t look happy to hear it, though. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”
“Why not?”
His intense stare was back, drilling down into me. “You know why.”
I opened my mouth to try to convince him, but just then a figure appeared in the kitchen doorway, silencing the conversation.
My father’s expression was pure dismay as he stared back at us, and it grew to anger as his gaze swept over the table, noting the meal I’d prepared, and the two wine glasses.
Anxiety and excitement mixed inside me.
How would he react? If he told Preston to leave, what excuse would he give? As far as he could tell, we weren’t doing anything but having dinner. One that maybe looked romantic, although I’d told Preston it wasn’t. Plus, a half a glass of wine for me wasn’t a big deal, and Preston was twenty-four. He hadn’t done anything to warrant my father kicking him out.
But he hovered in the doorway with narrow eyes, looking like he was considering doing just that.
If he did, there’d be hell to pay.
I’d reached my breaking point with them controlling me, and it seemed like my father sensed that. Changing the deal we’d struck about culinary school was one thing, but if he tried to tell me who I was and wasn’t allowed to hang out with, he knew that’d be pushing me too far. The final straw.