“Why is that?”
“I can tell.” I take a bite of my salad.
“All right then,” he says, lifting his fork. “Tell me about the man you almost married.”
Now I set my fork down. “I didn’t almost marry him. I said yes to a proposal and a week later gave the ring back.” And for reasons I can’t explain, I bristle, my brows dipping. “Are you judging me worthy based on my handling of my engagement?”
“There’s a difference between wanting to have sex with someone and wanting to get to know them, Ivy.”
“So I’m now worthy of what?” And with that, I’m suddenly done. I was judged unworthy by a man once before. I don’t need that again. “I should go,” I say, trying to stand, but he surprises me by capturing my legs with his legs. The action is remarkably erotic and highly confusing.
“What are you doing?” I demand softly, somehow ridiculously relieved that’s he’s stopped my departure and I don’t know why.
“If I only wanted to have sex with you,” he says, “that would have happened last night.”
My chin lifts defiantly. “You assume a lot.”
“I assume nothing. We’ve wanted to be naked together from the moment we met.”
“You’re arrogant.”
“I’m honest. Isn’t that what you want?” he challenges.
Yes, I think, and yet right now, honesty is uncomfortable. But then, lies, which I know too well, are painful. “You’re still holding my legs.”
“I want to hold a lot more,” he says. “Don’t run away, Ivy.” He releases my legs.
I don’t move. “I don’t know what to think about you,” I admit softly.
“As long as you’re thinking about me,” he replies, “for now, I can live with that. Why one week, Ivy?”
He’s back to my engagement. I reach for my glass, down half of it, and then set it down. “I met him right after my parents died.”
“You were vulnerable,” he assumes.
“Very.”
“Who was he?” he prods.
“He was actually not so unlike Jacob—the CEO of a successful startup, which is probably part of what turns me off of Jacob, perhaps even unfairly. Only unlike Jacob, Nathan Nice was never nice. He was more the confident womanizer. He whisked me off on trips and took me to fancy dinners. I let myself believe that was about me. Deep down, I knew it was about something else.”
“What was it about?”
“His father’s demand that he settle down and become a solid bet for investors. I knew. I did.”
“But you ignored your gut,” he assumes.
“Yes. I was so drawn to someone who was everything I was not right then in that moment in time because my world felt so broken. I felt alone. I wasn’t confident enough to be alone. Not back then.”
“And now?”
“Now, I’ll buy my own fancy dinners and trips. And I’d rather be alone than with the wrong person. As a bonus, I have my characters to keep me company.”
He studies me a moment that becomes several. “You loved him?” he asks, and there is this taut tension in him as if this question means more to him than it should. We just met. I am nothing to him and yet, somehow, I feel as if we are far from nothing.
“I loved the idea of him,” I confess. “I think he loved the idea of me in some ways, too. Just not enough to give up his other women. So why one week? It only took him one week to sleep with his secretary after I said yes.”
“You broke it off.”
“I did and I wasn’t nearly as heartbroken as I should have been, considering I said yes. I was almost—relieved. My eyes opened and I saw the truth.”
“Which was what?” he asks.
“Nothing about him or me with him was real. Not even me. I wasn’t who I am.”
“And what about now?” he asks. “Right now, with me?”
“Incredibly, I’ve been more real with you since I met you than I ever was with him. Do I pass your judgment?”
“This was never about my judgment, sweetheart,” he assures me, the endearment doing funny things to my belly. “I knew the minute I met you what I wanted. This, all of this, is about what you want.”
I blink. “What I want?”
“Yes, Ivy. What you want.”
CHAPTER TEN
Eli
The waiter interrupts our exchange before Ivy has time to reply, delivering our food. While he busies himself assigning plates and side dishes, my mind is racing.
Ivy is Ivy, my Ivy, my wife.
I knew that from Marcus’s admission of such, but in my core, I didn’t accept that possibility as real, I didn’t believe it was truly possible. That is until her thoughts jumped into my head without me even trying to grab them. She wanted a sparkling champagne, and she put that thought in my head. I didn’t take it from her. That’s not normal before an actual mating takes place, but then, we have a bond that stretches beyond one lifetime.
“This looks amazing,” Ivy says as the waiter leaves us alone again. “The macaroni and cheese especially.”
I laugh. “Most people are focused on the steak.”
“Well, that, too,” she agrees, “but I’m a bit of a mac fanatic.”
“Try it,” I encourage. “Everything is good here.”
Her eyes light and she scoops mac from the family portion-sized bowl between us onto her plate. Next comes the potatoes. Once our plates are loaded, we dig in. Ivy is quick to dig into the mac and sigh. “My God,” she murmurs. “It’s so good.” She repeats that reaction to everything she tastes.
And suddenly, I take back what I thought earlier about food and sunlight making vampires too human for our own good. If magic, specifically the magic of the witches in the Coven of Rain, hadn’t given me back the ability to eat, I couldn’t enjoy food with Ivy right now. We couldn’t enjoy food together in the future. I couldn’t go out in the sunlight and protect her should she need protection.
“Tell me about your books,” I say.
“You haven’t read them,” she realizes and adds a teasing, “Shame on you.”
“Yes,” I say. “Shame on me. I’ll remedy that.”
“Please don’t,” she replies. “People think they know me through my books. They don’t. My characters are not based on me.”
“None of them?”
“None of them. I don’t know how they become their own people in my head, but they do, and those people think, do, and say things that are not related to my own reactions. They’re not even based on people I know or have met.”
“Maybe they’re people you knew in another lifetime,” I suggest.
“Do you believe in that?” she asks. “Reincarnation?”
“I do,” I say. “Do you?”
“Why?” she asks.
Because you’re sitting here, I think. “Call it a gut feeling. You didn’t answer me. Do you?”
“I read a book once about past lives,” she says as we finish up our meal. “It was pretty convincing.”