“What’s on the tray?” I ask through the door.
“Filet mignon. Mashed potatoes in a reduced fig and balsamic vinegar sauce. Mocha caramel cheesecake.”
I moan. Can’t help it.
“No white wine, though. Andrew insisted.” There’s a big question in his voice. I rub my cheek against the door and take a deep breath, deciding.
Cheesecake wins.
The click of the door sounds like a choice, and I open it, stepping back. Declan rolls the car in and gives me a half smile as he sets the car next to the desk and unloads the trays onto the bed.
“Eat.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, you know,” I insist, but as he pulls the top of the first tray up the scent of steak and spices makes my stomach scream the opposite of my words.
He laughs.
“Just eat.”
After he sets the cover down he steps back and looks me up and down. “Nice nap?”
“No. I kept dreaming about a killer bee coming to get me in Antarctica. And a ferocious wolf.”
“What a mystery,” he deadpans. “No need to guess what your subconscious is struggling to get out.”
“What do you dream about, Declan?” I pick up a fresh strawberry from a fruit plate and eat it, grateful for something to fill my mouth after asking.
“You.”
“Nice,” I say, tipping my chin up, hurrying to swallow. “Really. Great line.”
“It’s not a line.” I take a bite of potato and then another, suddenly starving. Declan pulls the desk chair away from the keyboard tray and turns it backwards, straddling it.
Oh. So he’s staying. And we’re talking.
So that’s how it is.
I cut into the steak and take a bite. It’s like eating butter, just right, the perfect cut of tenderloin. “Tell me more about your dreams,” I insist as I eat, then I stop. “Would you like some?”
“I already ate.” His voice is raw. “I enjoy watching you.”
“Dreams,” I demand. “Dreams.”
Chapter Eighteen
“When I dream about you, it’s all sweetness and light. I don’t remember the dreams,” he confesses. “Not the way normal people do. I see pictures. Still images. Flashes.”
“Not like a movie reel? That’s how my dreams work. The parts I remember,” I explain. The filet is the size of a silver dollar and I finish it in five bites, then move on to the potatoes, then some julienned vegetables. Our conversation is so...normal. Concrete.
Cradling his jaw in his palm, he leans his propped elbow against the back of the leather chair. “No. Even as a kid. I compared notes with Terry once and he ribbed me about it. Said I was weird for not having dreams like him and Andrew.” Declan shrugs, eyes a little too bright, throat tight. I pause my dinner and take a long, slow drink of water, enjoying the moment to look at him.
He’s nervous.
Nervous.
My soul starts to hope.
I unveil a piece of mocha caramel cheesecake that could feed a small village in Southeast Asia. Grabbing two forks, I hold one out to him like an olive branch.
“Have some with me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Look at that! It’s a work of art. If you don’t want a single bite of it, then you’re not human,” I joke.
We simultaneously take a bite and groan together. Mutual mouthgasms. They’re rare, but when they happen, they’re unbelievable.
He gets to the cheesecake before me for a second bite.
“I thought you weren’t hungry,” I tease.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he says, vulnerable and watching me like I’m the only woman he’s ever seen. I swallow and stop, fork jabbed into the dessert, hanging in suspension. My shaking hand reaches for the water goblet and I finish it, Declan’s breath tortured, the air in the room singed with anticipation.
“If you missed me,” I say in a hoarse voice that seems to come from a place nine inches away from my mouth, “why haven’t you called? Or texted? Or sent a bat signal?”
“Remember that whole idiot thing from earlier today? Yeah. That.”
“And then there’s your mom.”
This time, he doesn’t flinch. Just closes his eyes and sighs, then opens them, fighting for composure. I want to reach out, to touch him, to connect my skin to his but he has to make the first move. Simply knowing what happened ten years ago and making the connection doesn’t mean he’s here to reunite.
He has to be the one to say it.
Leaping to his feet, he begins to pace. There’s a nervous tension in him, like an animal that has been caged for so long it doesn’t know what to do when freed. Three times he traverses the small room, words pouring out.
“You know my mother died from that damn wasp sting. Andrew was stung. First time he had a full-blown anaphylaxis.” The medical term comes out in a robotic voice, but as he continues he becomes more emotional. “Mom kept pointing from the EpiPen to him. She fought me off when I tried to jab it in her leg. Fought me. She couldn’t speak by then. The words came out as grunts. Andrew was panicking and they were both dying.”
“I know.” I walk to him and stop him, reaching for both his hands. “I know.”
“That day when you were stung,” he says, eyes wild, pulse beating so hard I can see it in his neck, right under his earlobe. “When you were stung and your EpiPen came out my first thought was Thank God, only one person. Only one person who I am responsible for. The odds aren’t stacked against me.”
“And then I stabbed you,” I say with a choked, horrified snort, squeezing his warm hands.
“And I thought that was it. But you had a second one.” He doesn’t need to say what we’re both thinking. The room goes cold with a huge gust from a brewing storm on the bay. If only...
“Fate,” I blurt out.
“Fate,” he says without question. “Fate is a cruel mistress.”
I look at him with a questioning face.
“Of all the women I could have met with their hand down a toilet at one of my stores, it had to be the one with the same allergy that....”
“Yeah. It’s pretty freaking weird.”
“I shouldn’t be with you.”
I freeze.
“But I can’t do this.”
Do what?
“I can’t stay away. Dad tried to convince me that I’m signing up for nothing but heartbreak with you. That the genetics are stacked against us—”