Page 104 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

He wasn’t leaning in all sexy?

I’m mortified to have even thought it.

I’ll just take a big old lick of this ice cream and it’ll cool me down nicely.

Chapter Thirty-One

DINNER CONVERSATION

George

From my seat at Mrs. Lundy’s dinner table I hear a plate smash and stare worriedly in the direction of the kitchen door Ashleigh just disappeared through.

It’s clear she didn’t expect to find me here at this dinner party.

To be fair, I never expected to be here either, but what’s a guy to do when a thousand-year-old lady pops around and begs?

Well, I say beg…

What I actually mean is Mrs. Lundy instructed me in a hundred different ways, all of them adding up to “show me I don’t need to worry about you not leaving your apartment for days by attending my dinner party”.

Of course, I’d made my own bargain with her before accepting. Stressing that if I caught even one whiff of a matchmaking blind date scenario then she could consider me straight out of there, to hell with good manners.

She’d given me the longest look before replying, ‘And why on earth would I do that to you when I know you’ve only recently come out of your relationship?’

Damn it.

Ashleigh must have told her. Probably asked her to come and check on me as well. Like I’m some sort of invalid.

It’s possible Ashleigh and I need to have a chat about not trying to “save” every single person she comes into contact with because it’s like she doesn’t know her company is enough. Not that I’ve had much of her company recently.

‘But since you’ve brought the subject up,’ Mrs. Lundy had added. (I definitely hadn’t). ‘Anya was perfectly nice but never right for you. Too married to her job.’

When I’d expressed surprise at her calling Anya perfectly nice because I’d suspected she hadn’t particularly liked her, Mrs. Lundy had said, ‘Yes, well, and what is “nice” anyway? Nice doesn’t fuel life. Nice doesn’t incite passion or adventure. Nice is nice is nice. Nice is a good start but you deserve someone who’d walk through fire for you.’

I’ve got to admit, I’d still been enjoying the thought of deserving someone who’d walk through fire for me when Mrs. Lundy had skewered me with, ‘If nice doesn’t develop into all of that, then you’ve plateaued. Knew it the minute the two of you never did take that romantic break.’

Plateaued.

After the surgery to fix my heart, I never thought I’d plateau in anything. Life was for living. Loving. Now, my kaftan-wearing Yoda was informing me I’d plateaued? Which is another reason why I’m here. Getting involved. Not sitting in the apartment on my own, plateauing.

I shouldn’t have licked her ice cream.

Ashleigh’s not Mrs. Lundy’s.

I’m not in the habit of going around licking other peoples’ food, even if, the starter tonight of cilantro king prawns enveloped in a puff pastry case, is delicious.

I look again towards the kitchen door and feel myself go hot at the memory of leaning in to lick Ashleigh’s ice cream. I don’t know what possessed me. Turning something innocent into … heat.

I can only think it was because I’d been having so much fun being around her. How long had it been since I’d had conversation that wasn’t work-related? And how easy had it been to talk about everything from where we stood on having kids to what our favourite flavour of ice cream was.

Pistachio being somewhat near the bottom of my list, I’m in no doubt I’d purposely leaned in to take a lick for other reasons. Reasons that rewarded because as the flash had ignited in her eyes, reducing the big, wide world to only the two of us, that crackle of awareness arcing between us had heightened anticipation. Experiencing that had been every bit as fun and addictive as talking about everything under the sun with her.

But now I’ve ruined something, I think, because back at the apartment she’d become more careful with me. Less playful.

When my brother had video-called to check how I was doing, introducing Ashleigh had been my way of taking the pressure off it only being the two of us. But as soon as she’d moved closer to get her face in the frame, the hyper-awareness had been present again.

She’d rallied more easily. Asking lots of questions about the wedding but after a while, she’d declared it had been great “meeting” everyone but that she had to go and would let herself out.

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