‘Wrong. I think you’re the most beautiful woman in this club, and I’d like to take you out.’
‘Where would you take me?’ she asks curiously.
‘The woods.’ My answer irritates me. Bravo, Shane. You sound like a fucking serial killer.
But the first flicker of interest appears in her eyes. ‘The woods?’
‘Yes. I have an old chateau in France. It is very beautiful this time of the year. At night the fireflies come out.’
She inhales with surprise. ‘Fireflies?’
‘A sight to behold, they are. I never tire of watching them as they blink around the garden. There used to be more, but there are fewer and fewer of them now.’
‘I have never seen fireflies. They seem more like the stuff of myths. How magical to see them for real.’
‘Then you must come to Saumur.’
‘Saumur,’ she murmurs, tasting the name on her tongue.
‘I promise you’ll love it. There are crickets and bull frogs and wild boar, and occasionally a peacock looking for a mate will wander into the grounds.’
Her mouth parts with wonder. ‘Really?’
‘Scout’s honor.’
‘Will I have to sleep with you to see all this?’
I am still holding her hand. I stroke the silky skin on the inside of her wrist with my thumb. ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ I say.
She smiles slowly, sexily. When she smiles she’s as beautiful as a field of fireflies.
‘We can just be friends?’ she asks cautiously.
My eyebrows shoot up. That’s a new one for the books. I honestly don’t think anyone has ever said that to me. ‘We can be whatever you want us to be.’
She leans closer, her eyes suddenly alight with mischief. ‘Are you wearing mascara?’
I laugh. ‘No.’
‘You have very fancy eyelashes,’ she says solemnly.
‘I could say the same about you.’ I swear I have never had such a weird conversation with a woman before.
‘But I’m wearing mascara,’ she says with a grin.
‘Do you have a name, mascara-wearing babe?’
‘My name is Elizabeth Dilshaw, but everyone calls me Snow,’ she says as she gently tugs her wrist out of my grasp.
I don’t want to but I let go. ‘Really? Snow?’
‘Yes. I was born in India where almost everyone is dark-skinned, so when I was born so fair and with such a full head of midnight-black hair, all the nurses started calling me Snow White. The name stuck and I became known as Snow.’
I smile broadly. She did step out of a fairy tale, after all. ‘Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony.’
‘And you are?’
‘Shane.’