Page 34 of King of Deception

I grinned, nodding, “Okay. I guess I’ll have what you’re having.”

“C’mon, don’t you wanna at least look?”

“Let’s risk it together.”

I didn’t know what it was about her, but every little move she made stoked my desire to kiss her. To distract myself, I looked down at the pink bangle on her wrist and continued to smile. If I’d bought a woman I knew a one-dollar bangle, she would have thrown it in my face, followed by a string of insults. But Ella, she reveled in whatever came her way, somehow owning it and making it look a thousand times better.

“Wine or limoncello?” she suddenly asked. “C’mon,” she snapped her fingers. “Don’t think.”

“Uh—limoncello?”

“We have a winner!” she slammed the menu shut. “God, you’re easy.”

I chortled, “Excuse me?”

“Y’know what I mean.”

“Not exactly, no.”

Flipping over her palms on the table, she spread them as she parted her lips, as if in search of words. “I—You’re not complicated. Not in a bad way,” she quickly caught herself. “But I feel like what I see is what I get with you. You have no idea how comfortable that is.”

I lowered my voice, blurring the line between serious and teasingly mysterious, “I have secrets.”

“Yeah?” She secured both elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hand. “Tell me one.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a secret.”

“How would I know? I don’t know that much about you.”

“Fair enough.” Shifting in my seat, I cleared my throat. “When I was eleven, I left a secret Valentine in Casey Gilchrist’s locker… even though I knew she’d kissed Trevor Boyd and would think that it was from him.”

Pouting her lips, she frowned and tilted her head. “Then why’d you do it?”

“Because it was a beautiful, red velvet scrunchie, and I wanted her to have it.”

She giggled. “You stuffed a scrunchie down that little thing?”

“With a card,” I added.

“A card! What did it say?”

Lifting my shoulders, I held up my hands in the air, “Eh—I love you… be my Valentine?”

“Awww!” She chuckled. “That’s so sad.”

“I know. See?”

“Where are they now? Casey and Trevor? Are they happily married? Do they have kids?”

Sighing, I shook my head. “Sadly, not all love stories end that way.”

“You don’t know.”

“I couldn’t care less.”

We both laughed before the waiter came to take our order. When he was gone, I watched her apply lip balm that smelled like peaches. “What?” she moved her head to the side where her eyes remained on me. “Not very lady-like?”

“No, no,” I chuckled and shook my head. “It smells good.”

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