“No.” I pucker my lips and shake my head as though the idea is ridiculous. “I’m fine.”
Leon claps his hands in front of him. “Great. Because there is an amazing Italian place close to my apartment, and you haven’t lived until you’ve had their ravioli.”
“You’re taking me for ravioli?” Near your apartment?
I keep the other thought to myself, not wanting to read too much into the location. I got off the train at his stop, so of course we are close to his apartment. It doesn’t mean anything.
“Do you oppose?” he asks, eyebrows raised like the entire date is off if I don’t like ravioli.
“I never oppose carbs.”
“Then why the tone of surprise?” he asks, pressing a hand on my lower back as he directs me around a corner and towards a narrow one-way street.
“I thought maybe you’d take me for sushi or lobster or—”
“Is that what you want to eat?”
I shake my head. “I hate sushi.”
He groans. “You’re a mystery, Grace. I don’t understand you at all.”
Each time he says my name, something inside of me shivers. Like a finger curling down my spine or a soft breeze on the back of my neck. It is a delicate kind of discomfort that makes me smile. I shake my head to dispel the tingles my name on his lips brings and shrug.
“Rich people like things like that.”
“You mean rich people like Sebastian?”
He walks with a comfortable stride, and I can tell he is slowing down to keep pace with me in my heels. I usually trade my heels for sneakers on the train for the walk home, but I wasn’t about to wear my beat-up white tennis shoes to dinner with Leon.
“I guess so,” I admit.
My experience with the fabulously wealthy didn’t extend too far beyond Sebastian and his circle of close friends, and they loved price tags more than anything. If it was exclusive, rare, or expensive, it must be worth having.
He looks over at me, actual concern on his face. “And I remind you of Sebastian?”
Our eyes meet for a second, and I realize just how surreal this all is. I’m walking down the street next to Leon Knight, a man I didn’t know a week ago, but who has now broken up my fake engagement and become the star of all of my daydreams. Once again, I have to wonder, how on earth did I get here?
“Not especially,” I say, looking straight ahead.
He nods like this is good news. “Then don’t be surprised when I don’t act like him.”
Before I can agree, he stops short and gestures at a small shop front like he is a model selling a car on a daytime television show.
The restaurant is on a street corner in a red brick building beneath apartments. I wouldn’t have even known it was a restaurant except for the tiny chef cutout holding an “open” sign sitting by the front door. The street is deserted, and I peek through the large picture window and see nothing but empty tables.
“It looks closed.”
Leon points to the tiny chef sign I’ve already seen. “It’s open.”
“It doesn’t look open,” I say.
He walks up to the door and holds it open, gesturing me inside. “This restaurant is authentic Italian food, so it draws Italian clientele, and they don’t eat until after seven, at least.”
I step inside, and the smell of olive oil and basil hits me like a punch to the gut, and suddenly I’m starving. The floors are original hardwood with plenty of wear and deep grooves in the high-traffic areas, and each table is covered with a plain white tablecloth. A waiter in all black steps from the back room holding a lighter. When he sees us, he smiles and starts walking towards us, stopping only to light a single candle at a table for two in front of a large picture window.
“Two today?” he asks.
Leon nods and once again presses a hand to my lower back. I never realized what a sensitive area of the body the lower back was before today. He leads me to the table, pulling out my chair for me.
“Want to start with the usual or chef’s special?” the waiter asks Leon.
“Two of the usual,” Leon says, gathering the menus and handing them back to him.
The waiter clicks his tongue. “Chef won’t like that. He wants your opinion on his new dish.”
“Tell Marco I’ve done the chef special the last two weeks. This week, my lady and I want his ravioli.” Leon winks at me as he says “my lady,” and I ignore the thrill that pulses through me.
When the waiter finally walks away, mumbling under his breath about “killing the messenger,” I turn to Leon.
“Do you come here often?” I ask.
He beams, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Are you hitting on me?”
It takes me a second to understand, but then I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles out of me. “That is so not what I meant. You just seem to really know that waiter.”
“I’m single, and I don’t care to cook,” he says as way of explanation. “And like I said, this place is close to my apartment.”
I wonder how close because the street we walked down to get to the restaurant looked similar to Myla’s neighborhood—fine, but not great. Not anywhere I’d expect to find the CEO of a big bank living.
“If I ate Italian food every day, I’d have to live at the gym,” I say.
“Well it sounds like you and Sebastian are dining on lobster and various kinds of seafood regularly,” he says, unrolling his silverware and laying the napkin across his lap. “And you look perfect according to my standards.”
The mention of Sebastian dampens the mood for a moment, but the word “perfect” perks me up a bit.
“We actually didn’t eat many meals together. I cooked for myself a lot.”
Sebastian is always “working late,” though I suspect he is actually out with various women until late in the evening when he will silently march through the front door and go straight to bed. He told me at the start of our “relationship” that I could order whatever I wanted, but that was only fun for the first few days—until all of the Thai food and pizza made me feel bloated and greasy. So, I keep the fridge stocked and cook for myself. My skills don’t extend too far beyond crafting salads and stir-fries, so my diet is healthy, but limited.
An expression I didn’t understand crosses Leon’s face, and he folds his hands on the table. “You’re speaking about Sebastian in the past tense now?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t get excited.”
He winks at me, sending another shiver down my spine, and then leans back in his chair. “Did you like spending your evenings alone?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” I say, making a point to use the present tense. “Sebastian has to work a lot, so I deal with it.”
Leon raises both eyebrows and shakes his head. “That’s no way to live.”
“You’re single, so I’m sure you spend plenty of time alone.”
He covers his heart with his hand like I’ve mortally wounded him, gasping for breath, and then laughs. “I’m single by choice, my dear Grace. Which means I’m alone by choice. I don’t have to ‘deal’ with anything I don’t want to deal with.”
I grab the glass of ice water the waiter left on the table and take a long sip. “If only we all had the luxury to make those kinds of choices. Most of us have to deal with things we don’t like.”
“Not your fiancé,” Leon says, leaning forward, his voice low and serious. “You shouldn’t have to ‘deal with’ the person you’re supposed to love.”
His words make my throat clench, and I’m not sure why. He doesn’t know my situation with Sebastian. Leon thinks I love Sebastian. He thinks I’m marrying him with the hopes of our relationship lasting forever. If he knew the truth, however, that this is just a business transaction with an end date, he wouldn’t think so little of me and my life. Or, perhaps, he would think even less of me. Maybe he would think I am a sleazy gold digger.
“I’m not trying to put my nose where it doesn’t belong,” he says, putting his elbows on
the table and resting his chin on top of his folded hands. He looks like a puppy dog trying to avoid punishment for chewing up a sneaker. “I just think you deserve a life you love, Grace. We all do. Our time on earth is too short to spend it doing things that make us unhappy.”
I stare at the candle flickering in the middle of the table, watching the wax drip down the sides, hardening as it reaches the ceramic saucer underneath. I’m only twenty-five, which is young by any standard. Certainly not old enough to be worried about when my life will end. Besides, I’m only going to be married to Sebastian for two years. Twenty-seven is still young, though it’s closer to thirty than I would like. And if I can’t date anyone during those two years, then I’ll be starting fresh in the dating pool at twenty-seven.
Even if I meet the perfect guy right away, we’d have to date for at least a year before I’d feel comfortable getting married, and I wouldn’t want children right away either—the money Sebastian is going to pay me will help me start my career over, and adding children to the mix would be too chaotic. So, I’d be nearing thirty-five before we’d start having kids, and if I wanted my kids to be three years apart, then I’d be almost forty before our second child was born.
I look around the restaurant, wondering if someone cranked up the heat. I feel hot. Sweltering, actually.
The waiter is crossing the room with two white bowls of what I presume is ravioli, and I quickly shrug out of my sweater, leaving me in a high-waisted pencil skirt and my white collared tank top. Leon is looking at me with dark eyes like he is either concerned or turned on. Probably both. That has been my constant mood since I turned around and saw him standing behind me on the train. I’ve been battling between my feelings and my obligation to Sebastian.
But what even is my obligation to Sebastian? Do I have one? Do I care?
More importantly, do I have the time to care? Moments ago, I wasn’t worried at all about my future, but suddenly it seems like I’m hurtling through life at top speed, ignoring all of the scenic outlooks along the way. And if the sight of Leon Knight smiling at me isn’t a scenic outlook, I don’t know what is.
The waiter places the ravioli in front of me and then Leon. It looks nothing like the frozen ravioli I’m used to. The pasta is a bright yellow color and the edges are uneven, clearly crimped by hand. The sauce is a creamy orange with a sheen of oil over the top, and it smells like a blend of herbs and spices I’ve never tasted before. When the young man grates fresh cheese on top of the dish, it is all I can do to keep myself from plunging into the bowl face first.
I want to be confident. I want to be like Myla. Or, if not that extreme, like the version of myself she is constantly encouraging me to be. I want to know what—and who—I want and go after it without worrying what other people will think or say. I want to be free to follow my own instincts without fear that they are somehow wrong.
The waiter steps away and takes a small bow. As soon as he’s gone, Leon sighs and picks up his fork and knife in each hand, banging them against the tabletop like he is a competitive eater. He smiles at me, the elusive dimple on his right cheek making an appearance.
“Enjoy, Grace.”
I look from him to my bowl and back again, a resolution settling somewhere deep inside of me, and pick up my fork.
“I definitely will.”
Chapter 8
Leon
As she eats, Grace appears to open up. With every bite of ravioli, she seems to enjoy it more, closing her eyes and moaning, wrapping her bright red lips around the fork and savoring every bite. I never considered ravioli to be a sexy food, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to enjoy it without thinking of this very moment.
“Is it good?” I ask, pushing my pasta around my bowl. It’s my favorite meal, but I’ve been too preoccupied watching Grace to enjoy it.
Her green eyes roll back in her head as she nods. “This place should be famous. Everyone should know about it.”
“I actually don’t bring many people here for that very reason,” I confess. “I like that it feels like my secret spot.”
She smiles at me, head tilting to the side, a strand of her hair slipping from her loose bun and brushing across her neck. “You trust me with your secret spot?”
Am I crazy or is she flirting with me? I’m not a dumb man. I know Grace finds me attractive. I know she’s interested. But I also know she is engaged to the human trash can that is Sebastian Wayde. So, what does any of this mean?
“I guess that depends,” I say, spearing a ravioli on my fork and taking a bite off the end.
“On what?” Grace asks, ripping a chunk of bread from the loaf in the middle of the table.
“On why you’re here.”
The bread is halfway to her mouth when she pauses and looks at me. “Because I want to be.”
For the first time, I feel like I am really seeing her. She’s looking directly into my eyes, and I don’t see any hesitation. I don’t feel the same wall I felt before, as though each question was a note wrapped around a rock and hurled over a fence, and I had to wait for her to read it, carefully craft her response, and then toss it back to me. We’re on the same side of the fence now, and I’m not sure what changed, but I’m not complaining.
“And I learned from some know-it-all recently that life is too short to deny ourselves what we really want.”
Her lips twitch up into a sexy smirk, and I don’t even mind that she called me a know-it-all.
“Sounds like a smart man.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’d think so.”
“So,” I say, leaning forward, arms crossed on the table. “What else did this very intelligent man say?”
Her lips twist to the side in mock disappointment. “He said he would woo me.”
“And has he?”
Grace looks me straight in the eyes. “Hardly.”
The shock on my face is real, and I shake my head. “You must be a difficult woman to impress.”
“Hardly,” she repeats, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
Matteo walks out from the kitchen to check on us. I’m at Marco’s enough that he knows he doesn’t need to hover over me the way most waiters do, but I wave him over. He hustles across the restaurant.
“Need something?”
“Your finest dessert,” I say, waving my arm in a grand, sweeping gesture.
He looks at me like maybe I’ve had too much wine. “The cannoli?”
“Is that your finest dessert?” I ask, all the while looking straight at Grace, letting her know this is all for her.
Her lips are pinched, holding back a smile.
“I think so,” Matteo nods. “People seem to like them.”
“Then, the lady will have as many as she likes.”
Matteo looks to her, hoping to confirm that I have, indeed, lost my mind, but Grace just holds up one finger and smiles.
“Same for me,” I say. “Hop to it and there will be a handsome tip in it for you.”
He runs a hand through his thick brown hair, shakes his head, and walks away, mumbling something under his breath that I don’t hear but makes Grace laugh.
“You think dessert is the way to my heart?” Grace asks, turning in her seat and crossing her legs. Her skirt rides up, giving me a glimpse of her thigh, and I follow it down to the long, lean muscle of her calf. She was gorgeous in the formal gown for the wedding, but the pencil skirt might be the end of me. I’ve always loved a hot librarian type.
I lower my voice. “I saw the way you ate that ravioli. You enjoyed it so much, it was almost indecent.”
She gasps in surprise. “What a gentleman you are, judging the way a woman enjoys her food.”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “No judgment here. Just a simple observation.”
“I’m sensing a theme,” she says, twisting her wine glass between her fingers. “You gave me cake the night we first met. And now cannoli. Perhaps, it is you who has the preoccupation with dessert.”
“Or perhaps I’m good
at reading my audience,” I counter.
She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “I don’t think so. You don’t know anything about me.”
I sit back and wave for her to take the floor. “Please, delight me. I would love to know more about you.”
Grace’s confidence wavers for a moment. She looks down at the table, her finger drawing a circle on the white cloth.
“What do you want to know?”
Everything.
“Whatever you think is most important.”
She takes a deep breath and thinks about it, truly. I watch her eyes shift up, sorting through the Encyclopedia of Grace to find the best parts. Then, she smiles to herself, bites her lower lip, and begins.
“I grew up on an apple orchard in Maryland.”
She talks about her parents, Scott and Sheila, and their devotion to one another. She recounts the story of their meeting in high school, their marriage, and the growth of their farm and family as though it’s a story she has heard and retold countless times.
“They are the best people in the world, and everyone thinks they have the best marriage,” she says, smiling but rolling her eyes. “Like they are some fairy tale.”
“You don’t think so?” I ask, sliding my cannoli across the table to Grace and trading her empty plate with my own. She absentmindedly takes a bite and keeps talking.
“Of course not. No real love story is a fairy tale,” she says. “There are always complications and problems. Fights and struggles. It can’t be perfect.”
“Fairy tales aren’t perfect, either,” I say.
She narrows her eyes at me.
“I mean, every fairy tale ends with a ‘happily ever after,’ but the characters go through a lot of struggles to get there. They make bad choices and face villains and monsters. No one would read fairy tales if they were just two beautiful, perfect people meeting, falling in love, and having no hardships. The hardships make the story worthwhile.”
Grace considers my words and then curses under her breath.
I laugh. “What’s wrong?”
“My parents really are a fairy tale.” She groans, dropping her chin into her palm. “That’s so annoying.”
The Triplet Scandal - A Billionaire's Babies Romance (Scandalous Book 3) Page 7
