Next, Saskia’s brow was furrowed, her sultry eyes wild, cheeks pink, lips a deep red—as close to how she looked when she fell apart in his arms as he’d ever seen her in daylight.
Lastly, Saskia had apparently been talking to his family.
“Pre-engaged?” Gabe repeated, when Nate said nothing at all. Then Gabe laughed, the deep sound echoing off the walls of glass enclosing the imposing room.
Saskia’s fiery gaze shot to Gabe and she stuck a hand on her hip and nodded. “I know, right? What the hell is pre-engaged anyway? A man made that up, for sure. As a way to get out of ever actually being engaged.”
“You got that right,” Gabe said. “If you want a woman you get married. No in between.”
“Thank you!”
“What kind of bling do you get for being pre-engaged?” Gabe asked, turning in his chair to direct that one to Nate, his dark eyes laughing their proverbial asses off. “Semi-precious at best.”
Nate angled his head at Gabe then towards the door. Out. Now.
“Oh, no, no, no,” Saskia said, waggling her finger at them both. “Of all the men in this room right now I like him best. So he can stay. Why not? He might know more about our ‘burgeoning relationship’ than I do.”
Wheels in his head whirring back to life, Nate stood, planted his hands on the table with a thump, and said, “Enough, Saskia. Calm down. Sit.”
“Excuse me?” she said, her eyes like twin flints.
He should have known better than to tell her to calm down, what with having three sisters, but this woman messed with his synapses. And hell if seeing her all riled didn’t turn him on...
He eased back in his chair with a studied air of submission. “Have a doughnut.”
Saskia blinked. Then her eyes cut to the tray of doughnuts on the table beside the mini-espresso machine. She licked her lips. Once. Enough for Nate to feel it in his groin. Then she shook her head so hard the curls below the edge of her beanie slapped her in the face.
Nate felt Gabe wince beside him.
“Sit,” he said again, then after a breath softened it with, “Please? And we’ll talk. Alone.”
“Fine, fine.”
Gabe dragged his bulk from the chair and ambled out—but not before planting a kiss atop Saskia’s head. And for that Nate wanted to crack him over the head with the nearest chair.
Saskia took a deep breath through flaring nostrils before she sat. Once she did, she seemed to deflate, head in hands, toes just touching the floor, as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible.
Swearing beneath his breath, Nate unclenched his hands from his chair’s armrests and rounded the table, took the seat beside hers. “Start at the beginning. How is it that you were talking to my family at all?”
She drew her hands down her face—eyes smudged, cheeks now devoid of colour, lips turned down at the corners. He actually wished the banshee was back.
“The twins rang this morning and invited me out shopping to find a dress to wear to the wedding.”
His sisters. His deal. His fault. He took her hands in his. Compared with his hot fingers they were soft and cool and small. “So you got a dress?”
“I did,” she said, delight flaring in her eyes, colour swarming back to her cheeks, her mouth turning up gently at the corners. She’s something, he thought. Like there’s a light inside of her determined to shine no matter what. And he bet she hadn’t a clue.
She looked up at him then, and breathed in deep, even a little shakily. “Why do they think we’re engaged, Nate?”
“Pre-engaged,” he said, unhooking a stray curl from her eyelash. “I have a small idea. Jasmine rang this morning—asking about you, about how things were going.”
He’d been standing in his bedroom doorway at the time, wondering whether or not to wake Saskia. She’d been curled up in his bed asleep, hands tucked under her chin, knees drawn to her chest, toes coiled around one another, her riot of hair splayed across his dark pillow, her soft lips parted, her face clear.
He shifted imperceptibly on his chair and said, “I might have told her something along the lines of ‘they’re going in the right direction.’”
Saskia breathed again—a little more shakily, a little deeper.
He continued, “Then one of them—Faith, probably—called and asked when the ‘Save the Date’ cards were on their way. I said I had no clue what she was talking about. She explained, I said she was a good couple of steps ahead of herself and—”
“She took a natural two steps back and landed on pre-engaged.”
“So it seems. The others are persistent, but at least they are vaguely sensible. I’m not sure where I went wrong with her.”