Southern Gentleman (Charleston Heat 3)

My eyes catch on the cute little lemon tree on the counter beside the sink.

“Would dinner make you feel worse or better right now?”

My eyes move to my narrow pantry door. I was planning on saltines slathered in Skippy—chunky, not smooth—for dinner.

Real food would probably be better.

Yeah. Much better.

“Better. I think.”

“I’ll be there in an hour. Craving anything in particular?”

My heart thumps. What the hell is happening?

Greyson and I have never eaten a meal together.

Hell, we’ve never had a real conversation. I guess we had half of one the other night about my pregnancy. But we’ve never had an in-depth talk, much less over dinner.

Which, up until now, seemed totally normal. Preferable, even.

But now that line is blurring all of a sudden. And I can’t tell how I feel about it. Too stuck in the clusterfuck of all these other emotions to untangle the single thread of this one.

Help.

Does he really want to bring me dinner?

“Do you really want to bring me dinner?”

“I do. I’ve never seen anyone sell their soul before. Is it usually the devil who bids the highest? Or, I don’t know, the ghost of David Bowie or something?”

A bark of laughter escapes my lips. I’m so startled by it—by this sense of humor I’ve never seen in him before—that for a second I can’t breathe.

“Usually the devil,” I hear myself replying. “But you already knew that.”

Greyson chuckles. This deep, chocolatey smooth sound that I feel in my nipples. But instead of hurting, they…tingle. Pleasantly.

“Are you implying I’m a Satanist?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.”

Another chuckle. “You wouldn’t be the first. I’ll bring the food.”

“And I’ll bring the exorcist. Maybe Bowie, too, just because. By the way, RIP to that guy. He’s so missed. Also—I could really go for some grits right now. Cheesy, creamy, bad-for-you grits.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

I think on that for a minute. Notice the tightness in my chest and in the skin on my face has loosened a bit. Tears are drying up, too.

Now I’m just hungry.

“Surprise me,” I say.

We hang up, and I spend the next hour wondering if I should change into something that isn’t my oldest, stretchiest, grossest pair of yoga pants and “I like big books and I cannot lie” sweatshirt.

I decide against it. I have nothing to prove to Greyson. Just because he was cute for all of twenty seconds doesn’t mean he’s a nice, stand-up guy. The kind worth putting real clothes on for.

While I wait for him, I fire off some emails. I’ve started to look into my maternity leave—how long I have, what I’ll get paid, when I’ll be going back to work—so I set up a few meetings with people at the college to figure it all out. Six months to go in my pregnancy, and already the work of being a mom has started.

I regret staying in my yoga pants when, exactly an hour later, I open the door to find a scrumptiously dressed man standing on my stoop, a paper shopping bag in one hand and a plastic bag in the other.

My heart hiccups as I drink him in. Trim waist emphasized by a brown belt. A crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing enormous forearms the size of waffle bats—the fat ones used by my friends to beat up their kid siblings when we were little—and a Rolex. Gold this time. Worth more than my undergraduate education if I had to guess.

Greyson’s eyes meet mine. Even in the dim twilight, their color is striking. Forward. Bold. Just like the man they belong to.

The scent of his aftershave, smoke and something else, fills my head.

He is enormous. Broad enough to fill the entire doorway.

I put a hand on the jamb to steady myself.

For half a heartbeat, his gaze moves over my body. A muscle in his jaw twitches. The look in his eyes when he glances back up—it’s hard. Heated. Like he’s pissed off. A handsome Hulk about to blow.

Do my yoga pants really offend him that much?

My spine stiffens again. Nipples harden to points. Okay, that hurts now.

If he’s going to be a jerk again—

“I got you the best grits in town. And a double cut pork chop.” He holds up a brown paper bag. “Made sure it’s well done. Eli bitched about it, but whatever. Google told me pregnant women are only supposed to eat well done meat.”

I can only stare at him.

He went to The Pearl. Elijah Jackson’s restaurant. Arguably the best in town. Best grits for sure, considering they’re milled by Luke and cooked by Eli.

The Pearl also happens to be the hardest reservation to get in Charleston. They book months in advance. And as far as I know, they don’t do takeout.

Except, apparently, for Greyson Montgomery.

He got me grits. And made sure my pork chop was well done.