I slide the door open, and he turns back to me.
“I’m ready if you are,” I say with a gentle smile.
He nods and moves to follow me back into the villa.
I don’t look back to watch him catch up to me on my way to the front door. I feel on edge. Nervous.
Noah and I are going to dinner together. We got ready tonight to spend the evening alone, just the two of us. This dress is technically for him, and I wonder what he thinks of it.
He doesn’t leave me wondering for long.
“That dress is an invitation. You realize that, don’t you?” he says as we take the sandy path from our villa to the restaurant.
Now that the sun has begun to set, the path is lit by tiki torches. Noah walks beside me, careful to brush away any overgrown foliage that might be in my way.
“An invitation?”
I act completely oblivious.
“A man looks at a dress on a beautiful woman and immediately wonders how easy it’d be to take off, how easy it would be to pull up in a dark corner of crowded restaurant.”
Even though his words have a way of heating my blood, I force a laugh. “Oh come on. It’s just a dress.”
“That, Lindsey, is not just a dress.”
I’m tempted to reach down and tug the neckline up an inch or two so there’s less cleavage, but that would be akin to admitting he’s right.
“Well we are going out. It’s the perfect dress for my first night in Mexico.”
He hums under his breath as the restaurant comes into view up ahead.
Even with sunscreen, Noah got a tan from our afternoon on the beach. He’s freshly showered and I can smell his body wash as he presses his hand against my lower back to lead me into the restaurant.
“I called ahead. It should be under Martin,” he tells the host before I can open my mouth.
The man scans down a list of reservations, spots the name, and then nods reverently. “Of course. Right this way.”
I’m intrigued by the fact that Noah called ahead. I didn’t think we needed to, but I’m glad he did because the restaurant is busy and we likely wouldn’t have gotten seated for a while.
“Here you are,” the host says, sweeping his hand over an intimate table set for two with a cluster of votive candles lit in the center. A bottle of rosé is already chilling beside wine glasses, and Noah nods approvingly as if this is exactly what he asked for.
“You arranged all this?” I ask as I sit down in the chair Noah tugs out for me.
“I wanted to make sure we didn’t have to wait,” he says, trying to make it sound casual.
It’s not. The bottle of rosé is my favorite brand. There’s no way they brought it by coincidence.
“This was really nice of you,” I say as he takes the seat across from me.
I’ve been in Natalie’s life long enough to know that Noah’s a rare breed. Romantic. Attentive. Addictive. For a brief instant, I allow myself to revel in the idea of being with a man like him, one who’s the exact opposite of Von. What would he be like on a date? In bed?
As soon as the thought pops into my mind, Noah knows it.
His gaze catches mine over the table, and maybe it’s the romantic atmosphere of the restaurant, maybe the glow of the candlelight or the effects of too much alcohol and sun in one day, but I swear Noah has a mischievous glint in his eyes.
When the waiter comes to take our order, Noah suggests we order the chef’s special. I agree, not wanting to hunt through a list of entrees when I could be focused on him instead.
It occurs to me that it’s slightly awkward to be alone with him. We’ve had dinner together plenty of times, but we’ve always had Natalie and Connor to act as a buffer.
All the simple first-date questions—not that it’s a date!!—aren’t on the table. We know so much about each other already. It feels silly now to start at the beginning, though I think we should.
“Do you want to play a round of twenty questions?”
He smiles. “I’ve never played.”
“It’s simple. I just ask questions and you have to answer them.”
“And then what? It’s my turn?”
I wink. “Sure, if you survive my questioning.”
He relaxes back in his chair and nods for me to start.
I go easy on him in the beginning.
“Favorite food?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.”
I smile. It’s a little funny considering he’s half French and half Spanish. I know his father’s job as a photojournalist forced them to move all over while he and Natalie were growing up, and I wasn’t expecting his answer to be so simple.
“From a restaurant?” I ask.
“Homemade. I’ll teach you sometime.”
I ignore the swell of butterflies in my stomach, nod, and take a sip of my water.