Maybe it’s best to focus on my original mission. Even before I left the States, I wanted to go to the bookshop I’d visited as a kid. No, not that one with the medical textbooks.
Definitely not the children’s bookstore with the stuffed dragon in the window.
And for sure it’s not the shop with globes in the window.
When I’ve scoured nearly the whole alley, I’m convinced the store I camped out in a decade ago has closed.
Until a sign beckons me.
An Open Book.
It feels like déjà vu.
Peering inside, I breathe a sigh of relief. This is the store. Jude is probably history, and soon, he’ll be a hazy memory of my first day in London—just some cute guy I met one afternoon.
A bell tinkles as I enter. I don’t see a shopkeeper. Maybe they’re in the back?
I browse the shelves, checking out row after row of colorful spines, stories in each one that lure me to read and also to write. I reach a row of works by Oscar Wilde, one of the greatest Irish writers ever. That dude was funny as fuck.
As I tip a copy of The Importance of Being Earnest into my hand, the thump of a hardback tome rattles a shelf behind me and I jerk my head.
Then I turn.
And wow.
This must be kismet.
Jude’s paused in the act of sorting books, surprised to see me, it seems. And he looks—impossibly—even better than he did a few hours ago.
“You found the shop,” he says, his lips twitching with the hint of a grin, his blue eyes full of mischief.
All at once, everything feels a little heady and a lot possible. Like this is the start of something. My fingers tingle, and I’m not even sure why. But maybe it’s just from this dizzying sense of . . . fate.
And fear.
I don’t want to fuck this up. Life doesn’t give you a lot of chances. So I don’t answer him right away. “Well, I had a few clues,” I finally say.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I did step off the plane and into my very own rom-com.
“It’s good to be an amateur detective,” he tosses back.
So that’s how we’re doing it—going toe to toe and quip to quip. Bring it on. “Who said anything about amateur?”
His lips curve into a sly grin. “Ohhh . . . you’re a professional detective?”
“How else would I have found An Open Book?”
His eyes travel up and down my body. “Sheer determination.”
I laugh. “Yes, a little bit of that, but someone left a few hints. It was like a scavenger hunt. Maybe that’s my new calling—scavenger hunting.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing. You do learn something new every day,” he says. Then he makes that wildly sexy move again as he did outside TK Maxx—he coasts his teeth over that lower lip. I stifle a groan. My God, does he know what that does to a man?
Who am I kidding? Of course he does. A guy who looks, talks, stands like that—he’s gorgeous and knows it.
Hell, he makes leaning against a shelf sexy.
“You know what I learned today?” I ask, plucking at my new Tetris shirt. It’s nice and snug and makes my chest look good.
“Dying to know.”
“That Angie’s Vintage Duds does, in fact, have good clothes. Appreciate the tip.”
“Would I lead you astray?”
That’s an excellent question. I glance down at The Importance of Being Earnest in my hand as I hunt for retorts, then I look up, our gazes locking. “I have no idea, Jude. Would you?”
He laughs easily. Bet he does everything easily. Pose, walk, talk, read, live.
“Not when it comes to important matters like finding just the right shirt, and just the right store, and just the right book.” He steps closer, taps the Wilde I’m holding. If an electrical charge could jump through pages, it just did. My skin is sizzling, almost like he touched me rather than paper.
“Like this book. Is that what you came to the store for?” Jude asks it so damn innocently, like he’s goading me into admitting I came here for him.
Of course, I did. But two can play at this flirting game. I waggle the book. “I just needed to brush up on my Wilde.”
“Naturally. You’re just here for the books,” he says, calling me on my patent lie.
“It’s a bookstore. Why else would I come?” I counter.
“There couldn’t be any other reason,” he says. “But I’d be a terrible shop assistant if I didn’t help you find just the right Wilde.” He takes his time with his speech so that each word can send a wicked charge through me.
They all do.
“Except, I don’t even know your name,” he adds.
I glance around. The shop is empty, except for a couple of young women parked on comfy chairs in the corner, flipping through guidebooks, maybe. They’re wrapped up in their world. I hope they stay there for hours.
“I’m TJ,” I say.
A laugh bursts from Jude.
“My name is funny to you?” I ask.
“That’s so very American,” he says.
“What do you know? I am American,” I say. “And I know you don’t do the whole initial thing here. Does that mean you prefer to be Jude the Third?”
Another laugh. “If I’d told you I was Jude the Third, I doubt you would’ve come looking for—” He sounds like he’s about to say me, but he amends it, quickly shifting to, “All the Wildes. Besides, I’m just Jude.”
But he’s not just Jude.
He’s not just at all.
I keep that thought locked up tight. “And if I’d told you what TJ stands for, you’d know exactly why some Americans prefer initials,” I say.
His blue eyes sparkle with intrigue. “You have to tell me now, TJ.” My name sounds like a bedroom whisper on his lips.
“You’ll never get that out of me,” I say, matching his breathless tone.
He arches a brow. “Never? Never ever, you say?”
I could dine on his charm. I could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on his wit. I never want to leave this store. We can play word badminton till after dark. I’ll stop only when the lights go down, and we can do all the other things—the things I’m already picturing with that lush, red mouth of his.
“Never,” I repeat, then take a long, lingering moment. “Unless you have your ways.”
He hums, a rumbly sound low in his throat. Then he taps his chin. “Perhaps I could guess. Thomas James?”
I shake my head. “Not even close.”
“Theodore John.” He makes a rolling gesture. “I could go all night.”
“I hope so. And, perhaps, you should,” I say.
Over drinks. Over sex. Over breakfast.
But the shop bell tinkles.
Jude groans as a customer strolls in. “I have to go wait on a customer.”
And I have to make sure you and I go out tonight.
But before I can say You’ll find me here by the Oscar Wildes, Jude adds, “Don’t go anywhere, Thiago Jonas.”
“You’re not even warm,” I say as he walks past me, brushing his shoulder against mine.
“But I bet you are,” he whispers.
I try to stifle the hitch in my breath. But it’s hard with this man, and his mouth, and his face, and my good fortune.