One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms 2)

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Do you need a ride?” he asked again, glancing down at her.

She tried for some belated dignity, even as a gust of wind pelted her with raindrops. “I’m f-fine. I’m just debating whether to walk, row or swim home.”

His smile spread. “What about a car instead?”

She raised her eyebrows. “How are we ever going to catch an empty cab in this weather?”

She knew that rain made New York City taxis disappear.

“Leave it to me.”

She watched as James scanned the street. Two cabs passed them but their lit signs indicated that they were occupied. As the two of them waited, they made idle chitchat.

Close to fifteen minutes later, by a stroke of luck, James spotted a cab letting out a passenger beyond the nearest intersection. He moved swiftly from the shelter of the awning and into the street when the empty cab started to make its way down their block. He raised his arm, a commanding presence, and hailed the cab.

As the rain continued to assault him, he opened the taxi’s door and motioned for her to step in.

“What’s your address?” he called as she hurried toward him. “I’ll tell the driver.”

She called it out to him, realizing that he had an excuse to find out where she lived. He made everything appear smooth, charming and effortless.

“Are you leaving? Do you want to share a cab?” she asked as she reached him. “You’re getting drenched! I should have offered you the umbrella in my bag but you stepped out so suddenly.”

She couldn’t stop the flow of words, though she knew she was nearly babbling. She had no idea what direction was home for him, but it seemed churlish not to offer to share the cab that he’d hailed for her. Yet again, he’d handily managed to accomplish something she herself often found difficult, being petite and certainly less imposing.

James looked at her and his lips quirked. Even with his hair getting matted by the rain and his face wet, he looked unbelievably handsome.

“Thanks for the offer,” he said.

She wasn’t sure if he meant to accept her offer, but once she entered the confines of the cab, she slid across the seat so he would have room to join her.

A moment later, he slid in beside her, folding his tall frame onto the bench seat and answering her unvoiced question.

She felt relief and a happy flutter, even as she also experienced a sense of nervous awareness. She had never left a bar with a man before—she was cautious. But then again, no man had attempted to pick her up in a bar before.

“I live on First Avenue in the high Eighties,” she cautioned James belatedly as he closed the car door. “I don’t want to put you out. I don’t know in what direction you need to head.”

“It’s no problem,” he said easily. “I’ll see you home first.”

She noticed that he didn’t divulge whether she was taking him out of his way or not.

He leaned forward to the partition separating the front from the backseat and told the cab driver her address. And in no time at all, they were speeding through Manhattan’s wet and half-empty streets.

They were content to make some more desultory chitchat as the car ate up the distance to her apartment. She discovered that he was thirty-three to her twenty-four—not ancient by any means, but older and more worldly than the boys she’d dated back in high school and college in Pennsylvania.

Perhaps in order to make the gulf between them seem less so, she shared her dream of opening her own wedding planning business. Surely, he wouldn’t think of her as so young and inexperienced if he knew she had plans to be a business owner.

He showed enthusiasm for her plans and encouraged her to proceed with them.

All the while, as thoughts raced through her mind, she wondered if he felt the sexual tension, too. Would she ever see him again?

In no time at all, however, they arrived outside her building.

James turned toward her, searching her eyes in the silence drawing out between them. “Here we are.”

“W-would you like to come up?” she asked, surprising herself.