He smirks and leans forward, kissing my forehead.
“Don’t ruin the surprise, princess. Let’s forget the rest of the world for a little while. Let’s pretend it’s just us.”
I let out a shivering breath, full of emotion.
“That sounds perfect to me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Rider
I asked a couple of the FBI guards to make a run to the store so I could get the dining area ready. They’ve done a good job, getting what I asked, and now I stand at one end of the room waiting for my woman to enter.
She walks through the door and looks around, letting out a gasp.
“Does that mean you like it?”
She gazes around at the scattered rose petals that litter the floor and the dining table, at the candles flickering all over the room, throwing their vanilla scent into the air.
I’ve drawn the curtains.
Well, technically, we have to have the curtains closed but it looks better anyway, the candles flickering off the surroundings.
“Like it?” She looks at me with candlelight making her tears glimmer. “Yes, I like it. I love it. I can’t believe you did this.”
I walk forward, my eyes moving over her, my manhood stirring at the sight of her change of clothes. She’s wearing a frilly pink top and tight fitting black jeans, outlining her curvaceous body perfectly.
I pull out the chair on her side and nod for her to sit down.
“So polite,” she says, dabbing at her cheeks.
She brushes my side as she passes, a gesture that feels achingly raw and new and yet somehow familiar at the same time, as though we’ve been together for a long time.
And yet this familiarity doesn’t steal any of the excitement from it.
My princess is a conundrum, that’s for damn sure.
I walk to the other side of the table and sit down.
“What are we going to eat?” Ruby says.
“One of the guards has agreed to pick us up whatever we want from the Italian place down the street,” I say, brushing some rose petals aside so she can see the menus on the table. “Believe me, princess, if I had my way we’d be at a five star restaurant right now—”
“No,” she says with passion burning in her voice.
She reaches across the table, past the flickering candle, and grips onto my forearm.
“I love it, Rider. Honestly. This is perfect.”
I squeeze onto her hand, feeling the truth of her words shimmering through her touch. I didn’t know it was possible to feel truth through someone’s touch, but with my woman, it seems obvious, almost tangible.
Of course, I can feel my woman’s sincerity in the pressure in her hand.
We were made for each other.
“Isn’t this crazy?” she murmurs, her smile spreading radiantly across her face. “After everything that’s happened today, we’re having a date.”
“I know,” I smirk. “That’s crazy in itself.”
“What?”
“Everything that’s happened today. How the fuck, princess, has it only been a day?”
“I was thinking that earlier,” she says excitably. “It’s so weird, isn’t it? I never thought it was possible to, you know, feel so much in a single day.”
I nod fiercely. “I feel exactly the same. Hell, before I met you I didn’t think I could feel much of anything. After Mom and Dad…”
“What?” she urges when I trail off.
I remove my hand from hers and nod to the menus. “You don’t need me depressing you. I don’t want to ruin our date.”
“Learning more about you could never ruin anything,” she says. “What were you going to say?”
I study her face, the acceptance in her eyes, the subtle twitching at the corner of her lips as though she’s ready to hear whatever I’ve got to tell her.
“Before Mom and Dad, I wasn’t exactly emotional, but I was definitely more… shit, I don’t know how to describe it. I felt more alive, more normal, I guess. But after those Cartel bastards killed them, after what they did to my mother, something broke in me. I became cold. Not completely, but far more detached than I used to be.
“And then you showed up, princess, on the twentieth anniversary of their death. I’m not the sort of man who believes in destiny. At least, I never used to be. But there’s part of me that can’t believe that’s a coincidence. Part of me thinks we were meant to meet today, of all days. Does that make me crazy?”
“No,” she says, blinking back tears. “I’m the same. I mean, I’ve never believed in fate or anything like that. But when I saw you, it was like something magical happened to me. I know how that sounds. But it’s the truth. It was like my whole world changed, right then, and it would never go back to normal. I don’t want it to go back to normal.”
I brush tears from her cheeks with my thumb, feeling something whelm up in my chest, something I’ve never felt before.