Page 8 of A Sudden Romance

“Sabastian.”

How he loved the romantic way his name rolled off her tongue!

“Uh-huh?” he croaked.

“Why did you volunteer to help me with the reunion?”

Because I’d do anything for you. I want to spend time with you and, hopefully, tell you how deeply in love with you I am. The words were choked in his throat, but he managed, “I deserve you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not me.” He rushed the words out. She was going to think he was a creep. “You deserve it is what I meant.”

“Hmm.” She sipped her drink. “If you have any regrets about helping me with the reunion, it’s not too late to back out.”

“No!” His voice rose more than he’d intended. That was easier than his previous responses. “I’m in.”

“I hope we’ll get to know each other while we work together.” Her genuineness warmed him.

Trust me, I’ve always prayed for this moment with you. But she was always engaged with her family or the friends she had over at the house.

“Maybe tonight we can go through our list.”

“Tomorrow is good.” He had no plans tonight, but he wasn’t ready.

After another twenty minutes, they arrived at the gate. The gatepost lamps and Christmas lights flooded the curved smooth rock and the engraved words, The Peak at Stone Estate. Iris punched the code through her phone, and the wide black gate rose for him to drive beneath it. Even when no guard was on duty here, the one at the house had an app beeping alerts whenever anyone drove through the gate.

Beneath the dark sky, the glow of lights strung around trees and deer-shaped decorations illuminated the expansive property. Even the snow-covered grounds twinkled beneath the lights’ reflection.

“This is so beautiful, Sabastian. The whole place looks like a winter wonderland.”

His heart swelled at her wonder. Good thing he’d put the outdoor lights up before the first snow of the season.

“Glad you like it,” he said, barely whispering. What he needed to say was that it was her plans she’d drawn out on how she wanted the display to look. So it was all her, but he could barely say yes. How was he supposed to speak a whole sentence?

With his heart in his throat, he drove up the hill to the three-story limestone house and toward the wide cobblestone driveway lined with glittering LED lamps that shimmered like icicles shooting from the hedging.

When would he ever get his nerves under control?

Even an hour and a half later when he served her and her mom dinner, he was still out of sorts. When Iris and Regina asked him to join them, he declined, claiming he had things to get done—things like taking care of his frantic heart when he escaped to the comfort of his house to breathe.

He’d underestimated Iris’s effect on him. She was out of his league. Of all the bad ideas he’d conjured in his lifetime, volunteering to spend time with her was worse than adding fresh fruit containing proteases to gelatin—it just wouldn’t gel.

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