“It’s why I hired him.”
I slide the spoon into my mouth, and when the cool sweetness hits my tongue, I close my eyes and moan, savoring the taste. My lashes flutter open to find him watching me like he’s trying to peer into my very soul.
It makes my belly heat. I tap the bowl. “You’re going to be very sorry you made this for me.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because I’m going to want this all the time.”
He shifts, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. “I can live with that.”
My heart leaps in my chest, and I try to distance myself from how emotional I feel. “Even though I’ll gain twenty pounds.”
His eyes darken, growing even more intent. “I don’t give a fuck what you weigh.”
“Oh.” I distract myself by fiddling with my spoon.
He chuckles. “I see this is making you nervous.”
I decide to be honest. “Usually, when guys get too nice about things, I lose interest.”
He sits back again, studying me. “Are you losing interest?”
I shake my head, then feel my cheeks heat.
“Tell me about the last guy you were with.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You don’t want to talk about that.”
“If I didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t have asked.”
I eat another bite of my dessert and contemplate before answering. “Okay, but in exchange, you have to tell me about the last woman you were with.”
“That’s fair.”
I sigh, prepared to tell him about my last relationship and how it ended in my public humiliation. “Even though I didn’t want a relationship, I’d gotten tired of dating around, so I started a casual, friends thing with a litigator named Travis. He was…fine. He served my purposes.”
He gives a small curve of his lips. “And what purposes were those?”
I blow out a breath. “We knew the same people and got invited to the same events. He was uncomplicated, and other than his annoying tendency to mansplain, he didn’t demand anything from me.”
“What happened?”
I drop my utensil. It bounces off the bowl and lands on the table with a clang. “He asked me to marry him.”
Charlie blinks, then laughs. “What do you mean, he asked you to marry him?”
“We’d been together for about six months. I was bored and ready to be done, but I hadn’t gotten around to breaking things off. There was this work event at the minor league baseball stadium, and everyone in the whole town was there. I was going to break up with him that night, but he proposed to me on the jumbotron, and there was a video, and it—um—went semi-viral.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No! And everyone thought I was a monster for breaking his heart.” I flop back in my chair. “You know, because he’s the nice one.”
Charlie picks up his phone sitting on the windowsill and swipes to unlock it before pushing it over to me. “Show me.”
I shake my head vehemently. “No way.”
“Yes. You know I’ll find it anyway.”