“No.”
“What, then?”
I think you don’t know me well enough, and you never knew him. How could you be so confident that he and I are not the same? How can you know I won’t make myself miserable and marry the wrong person, and have kids I don’t want, and drink myself into an early grave?
“How can you know?” Those were the only words I could pluck from my thoughts that I was willing to say.
Laila’s eyes danced back and forth between mine. Her smile never faltered. “I just know. You’re good to people in your own way. You want to make people laugh. You want to share light and joy. You don’t lead by intimidation. You don’t punish, or dismiss, or try to make people feel small. Our actions are what make us, Storm. Not our thoughts. Your father was an angry man who didn’t know how to unravel his own mess, or wasn’t willing. But you? You are nothing like that. I would trust you with my life.”
Fucking hell. What was she trying to do, rip my heart out and feed it to the ducks on our way out?
I rubbed absently at my chest. “Damn.”
She cocked her head to the side with a flirty smile that made my heart hurt even more. “Did I finally dismantle the armed firing squad that is your father’s expectations still living in your head?”
“You may have knocked a couple of soldiers off.”
She smiled in earnest. “It’s a start. I’ll take it.”
I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to sweep her off her feet, dip her low like we were in the middle of a ballroom waltz, and kiss her until neither of us remembered where we were.
I kept my ass in my chair. “Thank you for seeing me, Laila.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Thank you for seeing me too, Storm. Maybe you’re not the douche-canoe billionaire slut I thought you were.”
Together, we burst out laughing so hard that other guests in the restaurant shot us annoyed glares. Neither of us cared, and we kept on laughing until there were tears streaming down our cheeks and we could hardly breathe.
CHAPTER 28
LAILA
Storm and I might have been in Cold Spring Harbor to escape prying eyes, but as we laughed the night away at the restaurant, that was the very last thing we’d accomplished. Other guests scowled at us over their meals while we teased each other and roared with laughter. The hostess muttered amongst the serving staff, undoubtedly expressing how distracting we were to the other diners, not to mention obnoxious.
All of this only made us laugh harder.
Perhaps our good intentions of getting out of the city hadn’t been so wise, after all.
At eleven o’clock on the dot, our server came over to our table. “I’m sorry, you two. The restaurant is closing now.” He placed the bill face down on the table in front of Storm, who muttered a string of apologies between chuckles, handed over his credit card, and left a tip that stunned the server. “Sir, are you sure?”
“Definitely.” Storm took his card back and tucked it in his wallet. “You put up with us all night and we weren’t the most considerate. Perhaps this will make amends?”
The server stared at the receipt, his mouth hanging open.
It seemed that it had done more than make amends.
Storm and I stood and cast a glance out the window. Night had long since fallen, and ice had begun to form along the edges of the glass.
“It’s going to be a long drive home,” I sighed.
Storm flashed me a devilish smile. “We could stay a little bit longer? Get a room. Hey, is there anywhere good to stay around here that might have a vacancy?”
“Erm, yes.” The server managed to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Two doors down is a bed and breakfast run by Tillie Turnbull. She doesn’t close her doors until midnight, and she’s probably either sitting with other guests or reading her book in the window. She’ll get you a nice room.”
Storm pumped his eyebrows at me. “What do you say?”
What girl in her right mind would say no to an offer like that?
I grinned, and Storm offered me his arm. We left the restaurant tangled up in each other and turned right, following the directions from our server, which brought us to the white picket fence and gate of a large blue heritage house on the corner of the block. Storm unlatched the gate and nudged it open with his hip. The sidewalk beneath us vanished, and we used haphazard steppingstones to cross the lawn, which glittered with frost under solar lights staked in the gardens.
I imagined this place would be beautiful in the summertime and found myself almost saying to Storm that we should come back when the weather got nicer.
Slow down, crazy. You have no idea what this is, and he’s still your boss. Now is not the time to make plans that are almost six months away.
But even as we passed rose bushes and frigid stone benches, I imagined us coming back here sitting hand in hand in the sun. I could see Storm sitting on the stone bench, his face tipped back to the sun, with me sitting beside him, my bare legs thrown up on his lap to catch a bit of a tan. I’d scold him for resting his hands on my ankles and leaving pale finger marks against the bronzed skin, but secretly, I’d be happy every time I looked down and saw his handprint on me.
Storm held my arm as we walked up the steps to the front door of the blue house. There was a “Come In” sign hanging in the middle of a winter wreath of blueberries and white and green leaves. We stepped inside and were swallowed up by warmth and the smell of mulled wine.
I breathed in and closed my eyes. The sound of a fire crackling somewhere close by urged us deeper into the house.
The entranceway was grand, with a check-in desk at the base of a cherry-oak staircase. Behind the desk was a cubby full of keys. Coats hung on hooks to the right of the cubbies, and an open archway led to the kitchens, where I presumed guests were not allowed. To the right, a grand archway opened into a large sitting room full of rugs, mismatching leather furniture, and a glowing fire. An older couple sat with their feet up on the hearth. A large dog lay under their legs, basking in the heat. Upstairs, I could hear footsteps.
“I hope there’s an available room,” I said.
Just as the words left my mouth, a woman with frizzy hair came out of the kitchen wearing a frilly pink apron and large glasses. She had to have been in her mid to late sixties, and I knew right away that she was Tillie.
Tillie clasped her hands together and smiled warmly at us. “Hello, my dears. Are you looking for a room?”
Storm stepped up to the check-in desk. “Yes please.”
“Just the two of you?”
We nodded.
Tillie went about pitching the rooms she had available, a one bedroom facing the backyard with a clawfoot tub in the bathroom or a room with a king-sized bed with a harbor-facing view and no tub.
We opted for the harbor view.
Once we had our keys and had heard the spiel about the rules of the property and how breakfast worked in the morning, we moved upstairs to the second floor, where we went down a surprisingly wide hallway to our room at the front of the house. Storm let us in and flicked on the lights, and I smiled at how quaint it was. Floral wallpaper stretched from the ceiling to the midway point of the walls, where white wainscotting went the rest of the way down to the baseboards. White roses sat in vases on almost every surface, and I wondered if this room would be booked on Valentine’s Day.