The Wonder of Now

by Beck, Jamie

  He cleared his throat, looping an arm through hers again. “I’d rather invest in Le Creuset bakeware than those copper planters.”

  “Bakeware?” Her smile rose along with her hope. “Do you expect me to cook?”

  “No.” He stared ahead, a whisper of a grin on his face. “They’re for me.”

  “You bake?” She chuckled.

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “And cook?” She pictured him standing at the stove—no doubt in an apron to keep his clothes neat—searing some tuna or preparing some other meal to share with her while discussing their day. She’d be sipping wine and searching for the right playlist to set the mood.

  “A bit, but I don’t enjoy it as much. Cooking is more of an art form, whereas baking is about precision.” He emphasized his preference with a single raised brow.

  She chuckled. “Well then, you must be amazing.”

  He shrugged, too modest to brag, but not so humble as to deny it.

  “What’s your best dish?” she asked.

  “Hmm . . . I make a great chocolate soufflé and a mean French macaron.”

  “I love macarons.” When she ate sugar, anyway. Interesting that a man who didn’t like to travel favored foreign desserts. Perhaps baking was his way to travel, or to escape reality. He just didn’t know it. “What else?”

  He gazed upward, thinking. “I’m good with pie crust.”

  “No, I mean what other secrets have you been keeping from me?”

  “Secrets?”

  “Talents.” She rolled her hand over a couple of times while saying, “Habits, hobbies, tidbits I don’t know.”

  He kicked a stray pebble, his expression pinched in thought. “I used to build models.” That didn’t surprise her. Another hobby that required his hallmark traits—patience and precision. “Starting at around ten, I’d get one or two new kits for the houses and things you place around a train set. My dad and I would work on them together. We’d planned an elaborate Christmas village, but we never finished . . .”

  She squeezed his arm in empathy. “Do you have any pictures of what you did?”

  “My mom must have some somewhere.”

  “I’d love to see what you looked like as a kid.” She’d bet his eyes had been lit with curiosity before tragedy struck his family. He’d probably laughed plenty, too. Mitch was right about one thing—no imaginary games would bring back his dad or give him back the childhood he’d lost.

  “Do you have hobbies?” he asked.

  She wrinkled her nose, thinking back on her many phases. Unlike Logan, who took deep dives into art and photography, she bored easily and was satisfied to skim across the surface of new languages, musical instruments, dance classes, and such.

  “I never had your persistence . . . unless you count pranking people. I was very good at that.” She laughed.

  “Not shocking.” He smiled at her, then looked at the row of houses again. “Maybe we move to the blue one, there.”

  “Why?”

  “It already has copper planters, so I can get my bakeware. Plus it looks a little bigger, and the wisteria across the street would make a pretty view.”

  “Fair points.” As they neared the end of the mews, she reconsidered Mitch’s opinion about how the trip from utopia to reality could be crushing. “In all seriousness, before I got sick, I used to daydream about renting a flat here. I love this street so much. It’s like something from a fairy tale . . . a place for happy endings.”

  “Happy endings . . .” He snorted with a naughty glint in his eye, which made her laugh because it marked the first time he’d ever been remotely off-color.

  She slowed her steps when they reached Gloucester, a busy thoroughfare. The end of utopia. A stubborn, selfish little voice in her head whispered, Turn your fantasy into reality. She’d always found that devil on her shoulder hard to resist. “There’s a fantastic wine shop a few blocks that way. Shall we get a bottle to drop at the hotel before dinner? We can drink it tonight to celebrate the end of the trip.”

  “If you’d like to celebrate the end, then we will.” He nodded, but he didn’t sound very festive.

  In truth, the part of her that would rather stay with him in the mews than return to New York didn’t much want to celebrate, either. Those words filled her mouth, but she swallowed them for fear of ruining what little time she had left with Mitch.

  Mitch gripped his pint at the bar in the Wenlock Arms while burning a colossal hole through the back of Harry Davies’s head. If Peyton’s editor gave her one more drink tonight, Mitch might reach overhead for one of the hundred heavy bar glasses and toss it at that bald spot. Clearly, that guy didn’t have rules about separating business from pleasure. Neither did Harry appear to have any compunction about plying women with alcohol.

  The pathetic loser had to be ten years Peyton’s senior, if not more. Couldn’t he see he was making an ass of himself?

  Mitch rubbed his temples to stave off the headache springing from pretending to be interested in the dozens of casks and keg options at the bar while surreptitiously keeping an eye on every move Harry made.

  Two things would slow down any rescue attempt he could make if Peyton got into a bind. First, he’d have to go over or around the massive square bar between them. Second, he’d need to part all the drunk people obscuring his view, which wouldn’t be easy.

  He swigged his ale. The pub’s blackened wood floors and dark painted brick might as well have been a mood ring. Only nine o’clock? That couldn’t be right. He would’ve guessed they’d already been there at least five hours.

  Maybe that third pint of Dark Star Sunburst hadn’t been a great idea, but even the hangover Mitch expected tomorrow wouldn’t suck as much as his return to reality after pretending to be Peyton’s boyfriend this afternoon. He’d known that game would come back to bite him in the ass.

  Either way, this night marked the end of their tour together. He’d spent the past twelve days suppressing his feelings. Making excuses to slip away in order not to compromise himself or her. Now he wanted those days back. Anything for a bit more time. For a chance at that elusive happiness she seemed determined to seek at every turn.

  He chugged the rest of his beer to drown his self-pity. Another glance across the bar caught her laughing, which prompted a smile despite the fact that he wasn’t sharing it with her. She might not be his, but he’d make sure she didn’t end up with Harry or anyone else in this pub, either.

  “Sounds like you and Peyton got around the Continent these past weeks.” Wes Smith, Naughton House’s in-house senior PR guru, slapped Mitch on the shoulder as he wedged beside him at the bar.

  Wes ordered another ale, then must’ve noted Mitch staring across the bar to where Peyton remained cloistered by Harry.

  “She’s a posh one, like I thought. But I still like her in spite of it!” Wes laughed at his own joke. “My wife’s friend had breast cancer. Terrible thing. She thought she was fine for a spell, but then it came back in her brain. Wrecked her husband. Left two kids behind.” Wes sipped his beer as if his story hadn’t squeezed Mitch’s heart to a dead stop.

  His gaze flew to Peyton. It could happen to her. He knew it. He’d always known it, he supposed, although he hadn’t let himself overthink it. His dad’s hollow cheeks and anguished cries came rushing back. If Peyton were his . . . could he deal with losing her that way—would he survive suffering that kind of pain and loss all over again?

  Wes leaned forward on the bar, oblivious to Mitch’s thoughts, craning his neck left and right. “I’m hungry. Any toasties left?”

  “I don’t know.” Between the ale that filled his stomach like a water balloon and the thought of Peyton’s cancer returning, Mitch had no appetite.

  Wes wiped a bit of foam from his lip. “So back to America? Wish you luck, mate. Sales and all that.”

  “Thanks, Wes.” Mitch threw ten pounds on the bar, needing to get away from Wes, as if distance would erase the worry he’d planted in Mitch’s head. “I
f you’ll excuse me, Peyton and I’ve got an early flight,” he lied.

  “Ah, yeah. Don’t want to get too pissed before a flight. Safe travels.” Wes shook his hand before wandering two stools down to barge in on another colleague’s discussion.

  “Thanks,” Mitch called after him before circumnavigating a dozen or more of the loud drunks to reach Peyton.

  The blaring TV overhead and yammering crowd intensified the pounding in his head.

  When he arrived, Peyton greeted him with a warm smile, reaching out for his hand, which made his heart beat out mine, mine, mine despite everything that should have kept him away from her. “Mitch!”

  Then she hiccuped.

  “This woman is brilliant,” Harry slurred while encroaching on her personal space in a very un-British show of manners. Mitch wanted to punch the guy when his eyes dipped to that peephole in her dress.

  “Brilliant!” she echoed, her voice tinkling with laughter. “Let’s never leave London. I like it here.”

  Let’s, she’d said, suggesting she viewed them as a pair. His heart rose inside his chest.

  “We like you here, too,” Harry murmured, emphasizing his remark with a quirk of his bushy eyebrows.

  Mitch squeezed her hand. “Peyton, it’s time to go.”

  “Oh pooh.” She pouted. “Is the party over?”

  “It is for us,” he said before Harry could offer her an alternative.

  “Okay.” She blew kisses at Harry. “Thank you for all your hard work and the great party.”

  Harry tossed Mitch a perturbed look but relented. “Let’s hope to see your memoir in the Sunday Times next week.”

  Peyton laughed. Poor Harry had no idea of her lack of interest in hitting a list. Of course, Mitch and Harry couldn’t share that attitude and keep their jobs.

  She leaned on Mitch, one arm draped across his back. He could almost taste the cider on her breath. Her head fell against his shoulder when she said, in a low voice, “We still have a party waiting for us at home.”

  “Do we?” He wrapped his arm around her waist, not at all put out that she sought assistance walking out of the bar. Her body felt warm and soft beneath his hand. Want flowed through him more briskly than ale poured from any cask in the pub.

  “Mm-hmm. That wine we bought today. My room has a terrace. Perfect for a nightcap.” They tumbled out to the sidewalk. Neither of them needed a nightcap. Her hair brushed his cheek when she looked up at the sky. “And look, it isn’t raining. Brilliant!”

  The dictionary definition of “bad idea” was a private party with Peyton. Yet ten minutes later, Mitch found himself in her room, sitting at the little café table on the turf-covered rooftop terrace, sharing a bottle of pinot noir.

  Distant horns, a breeze, the faint sound of music coming through someone’s open window. These things swirled around, making him dizzy, but nothing kept him more off-balance than Peyton. So full of life it seemed hard to believe she’d ever had cancer. He wanted—needed—to bask in her light and be carried away from duty and off to adventure, even if only in his imagination. Maybe she’d won that debate after all, or else he was now into self-flagellation.

  “What will you remember most from these past weeks?” she asked, her legs stretched out, shoes kicked off, pink toenails stretched toward the sky as she flexed her feet. Those calves . . .

  “I don’t know. It’s been a blur,” he said, covering, knowing that his strongest memories were things he couldn’t say, like the way she’d spent twenty minutes talking to one survivor in Amsterdam after the signing when he knew she was exhausted, or the dreamy look in her eyes when she’d eaten that pasta in Rome. Or that kiss . . . “How about you?”

  “Square du Vert-Galant,” she said without hesitation. “I love that you planned it for us. A little escape.”

  It’d been freeing to discuss his dad with her. Maybe he would be willing to risk living through that kind of hell again if it meant he’d get to look into her eyes every day from now until whenever. Would she welcome him reaching across the table to pull her onto his lap or reject him again? He was too buzzed to know.

  He should go. This situation wasn’t smart for either of them.

  Before he spoke up, she raised her glass. “To us.”

  Then she waved her free hand like she was erasing her words. “Actually, to you! Thanks for giving up weeks of your life to walk me through my first—and last—European book tour. For making me take responsibility for this work when all I wanted to do was run from it. I might not ever write another book as long as I live, but somehow doing all this has made me feel a little stronger than when we started. More like a survivor than a victim. You’ve made this experience memorable, Mitch.” She fell quiet and leaned across the table, staring into his eyes and licking her lips. “I’ve always loved Europe, but what I’ll miss most when we get home is seeing you every day.”

  And then she blinked like someone waking from a daze. Her crimson cheeks glowed like embers. She stood, clutching her wineglass, and moved to the brick railing to stare into the windows of other townhouses.

  He finished his wine. Warm, humid air made it twice as hard to catch his breath. She’d miss him. His heart pounded so hard his chest pulsed. Now he stared at her from behind, the full moon above casting her in soft light. This entire scene seemed clipped from a movie.

  He jumped from his seat when she pitched forward to get a better look at something below that had snagged her attention. In her unsteady state, she could have gone over the railing.

  When he touched her arm, she looked up with those round blue eyes and smiled. “Don’t you love this? A private garden—we can spy on all these people.”

  “Not so private.” He then ran his hand along the metal railing to block her from leaning forward again. “If you can see them, they can see you.”

  “You’re right,” she whispered, now inches from him, and nodded as if she hadn’t considered that. He was memorizing the shape and exact colors of her eyes when her hand landed on his chest.

  He didn’t dare move because he liked her hand there covering his heart. The scent of her skin and hair in the breeze filled the sliver of space between them. Without thinking, he closed his eyes to concentrate on it. Seconds later, her hand brushed upward. He opened his eyes, heart now thudding in his ears.

  The air between them charged with the energy of an oncoming thunderstorm. Careful. Careful. Careful.

  “Let’s give them something to look at.” She splayed her fingers through his hair, one hand and then the other, sending tingles fanning over his scalp and down his back. Twice, thrice . . . sweet torture. She watched her hands comb through his hair. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first time I saw you at JFK.”

  He settled his hands on her hips, barely breathing. He should push her away. “Peyton, you’re drunk.”

  “Not too drunk. Just enough to be braver than in Paris.” She placed one finger on his lips. “Let’s not talk about the rules. I don’t care about rules. Life isn’t about rules . . . It’s about living. It’s about heart.” She let her hand fall from his mouth and set it back on the center of his chest. “I only have one question: Does yours feel anything for me?”

  She swayed a bit—a reminder that neither of them was sober. The ground beneath him dropped away as he nodded. “A lot, actually.”

  His words brought the prettiest smile to her face, so he could hardly regret saying them. It wasn’t taking advantage. Not when he meant every word.

  While he got lost in his own moral dilemma, she cupped his face and kissed him.

  A tentative kiss that tasted of cider and wine and something warm and sweet. A second chance at the kiss that had haunted his dreams.

  Gravity and weakened knees left him pinned against the railing with her body pressed against his. He feasted on her lips. Savored the heat of her tongue as he deepened their kiss. The sound of her breath, the beat of his heart, the rush of blood that raced to his groin, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing to the point of
pain. He ran his hands along her waist and wound them around her back until he’d locked her in a tight embrace.

  He wanted more of her mouth. More of the heat flowing through his limbs. The tingling in his feet. The breathlessness of it all . . .

  She circled her arms around his neck, flattening herself against his torso. The soft hum in her chest reverberated, pushing him to kiss her more urgently and touch her like he would never stop.

  The silky threads of her wild hair brushed against his hands, teasing other parts of his body. With his temperature rising faster than mercury on a sweltering summer day, he might combust right there on the terrace.

  This woman could kiss with a seductive rhythm that promised pure delight. He lifted her into his arms, strode through the terrace doors into her room—one dominated by a double bed and its ornate headboard padded with velvet. They fell onto the mattress. She was panting, restless with want, which made him even hotter. He couldn’t catch his breath, but even in his frenzied state, he didn’t leap on top of her.

  Stretching out beside her, he pulled her in for another kiss. When she melted into his arms, another surge of desire coursed through him, forming a single-minded purpose—to taste every inch of her skin. He kissed his way along her jaw and down the sensitive skin of her neck, encouraged by the way she shivered. With one hand, he tried to unbutton the little peephole that had tantalized him all night, eager to explore the trail through that valley and down her torso to her belly button.

  A fatal mistake.

  The wash of lust had shut down all reasoning, so it took an extra second for him to register her sudden stiffness. Then she wedged her hands between them and crossed her arms in front of her breasts as she turned her face away. He rolled onto his back, confused until he remembered why they were even in London and all that she and her body had been through.

  “I’m sorry.” He turned on his side and brushed her hair away from her face.

  She closed her eyes. A tremor seized her shoulders as a tear rolled down her cheek. His blood drained, leaving his skin damp and cold.