“No.” The hostess frowns and nods to the gazebo beside mine. “Here’s your table. If it’s not to your liking I can shuffle a few things. Put you up in one of the tents?”
Neevah and I stare at each other, a luxury I don’t often allow. She gulps in the extended silence, tearing her eyes away from mine and nodding.
“I think that might be best,” she tells the hostess. “I don’t want to impose. This is a crazy coincidence, Canon. I’m sorry. I’m sure you wanted to be alone and the last person you want to see is . . .”
She’s rambling. It’s cute.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she finishes on a rush, turning to mount the steps. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Stay.”
That damn word will be the ruin of me. I said it on the balcony at the Halloween party and could barely concentrate for a week after our conversation.
She pauses, one high-heeled foot on the stone step, the other on the ground, and looks back at me. She really is breathtaking. It kind of sneaks up on you. You think at first she’s merely pretty, but up close, midnight lurks in her velvety brown eyes and someone thought it was okay to dust a few freckles into the rich caramel of her skin.
That was not okay.
Those freckles pose a threat to my sanity and make me want to lick them, find out if they taste like cinnamon. Find out once and for damn all how she tastes.
“Are you sure?” she asks, her expression as uncertain as her words.
“Yeah.” I shrug, like this isn’t exactly the kind of situation I’ve avoided with her. “Why not?”
The hostess leads her to the neighboring gazebo.
“Look, that’s ridiculous,” I say. “What? We gonna sit five feet apart and eat separately?”
I’m playing right into Jill’s schemes, but even I know that would be crazy.
“Canon, I don’t want to—”
“It’s dinner. It’s an hour. I have the rest of the night, hell, the rest of the week to be by myself.” I nod to the empty seat across from me. “Join me if you want.”
The hostess grins like this is the best idea she’s ever heard, and I bet she wrote that damn sign outside. Most romantic restaurant, my ass. After a brief hesitation, Neevah takes the few steps up into my gazebo and settles into the seat across from me, a look of discomfort on her face despite my assurances. The hostess says she’ll give us a few minutes to look over the menus.
And then she leaves us alone.
28
Neevah
“Is this your first time?” I ask in the silence the hostess leaves behind.
This is as awkward as a Real Housewives reunion special.
“I just meant . . .” My laugh tinkles nervously like a fifteen-year-old on her first date. “Have you been to this restaurant before?”
This is not a date. Canon Holt is not your Thanksgiving date. You will not lust after him . . . anymore.
“No.” He studies his menu, his brows furrowed in some serious concentration. “Jill suggested this place and reserved my table.”
“She reserved mine, too. So sweet of her.”
The look he flicks at me over the edge of his menu says he doesn’t agree. “She needs to mind her damn business. Meddling.”
“Meddling? I don’t understand. She . . .”
She reserved us tables together at the city’s self-proclaimed most romantic restaurant.
“Oh.” Shit. “You don’t think she . . . that she thought we—”
“Uh, yeah. I do think she thought we.”
My face catches fire, mortification filling every inch of my empty stomach.
“Canon, I’m . . . I had nothing to do with this. I promise I was clueless.”
“I know that. For an actor, you’re not very good at faking.”
“Should I be insulted by that?” I ask, smiling in spite of the awkward situation.
“No. Some actors don’t know when to stop pretending. You do. You’re as clear as glass and don’t dissemble well.”
“You mean everyone can read my emotions easily?”
“I don’t know about everyone.” He holds my eyes over the menu. “I can.”
That makes me highly uncomfortable because my emotions are in constant turmoil around this man, and right now, on a scale of deep respect to raging hormones, I’m at a twelve. To think I’m transparent to him, that he might see . . .
“I should go.” I stand, tossing the linen napkin onto the table.
“Sit down.” The gravel-rough command in his voice sends a shiver clamoring up my spine.
“I don’t think so. I really should—”
“And where will you go? What will you eat for Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Um, In-N-Out Burger?”
His low-timbred chuckle, accompanied by that rarest of phenomena, a full-fledged Canon Holt smile, catches me where I stand, trapped between coming and going.
“Neevah, sit. It’s one meal. We’ll survive it.”
I check his expression to see if he means it, but unlike me, Canon is opaque glass frosted by his iron control. So I’ll take him at his word.