Page 69 of The Romance Library

‘Actually, I have. Did you ever watch Bridgerton?’

‘Seriously?’ He raised his eyebrow. ‘Do I look like the target audience for Bridgerton?’

‘You’re rich and posh, so I reckon it’d be right up your street. If it was real, they’d probably be your ancestors.’ I laughed and Theo rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, so because you’ve clearly been living under a rock, Bridgerton is a popular period drama, and in it, they’d play classical music versions of pop songs. So I was thinking maybe we could take a popular song that most of the residents will know—something fun—and give it a kind of classical twist with the piano to begin with and then switch it up halfway through.’

‘Okay. What song were you thinking of?’

‘How about Taylor Swift? She’s popular and has fun songs. I was thinking of ‘Shake It Off’. Do you know it?’

‘I haven’t been living on the moon. Of course I know it!’ he laughed.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to learn it?’

‘Certain,’ Theo said.

‘Mr Arrogant’s back!’

‘It’s not arrogance, it’s confidence. There’s a difference.’

‘If you say so. Time to put your money where your mouth is.’

I pulled up the video on YouTube that I’d bookmarked and handed it to Theo.

Don’t ask me how, but he picked it up straight away, like I’d just asked him to play chopsticks. I was actually impressed.

A few hours and a couple of bottles of wine later, we were performing it like we’d been practising for days. Somehow it was so easy to work together.

I connected the YouTube video to the portable speaker Glenda had, and as the song blared in the room, I started dancing.

‘Come on!’ I dragged him up from his chair. ‘Dance!’

‘I’m not much of a dancer.’ He winced.

‘Doesn’t matter! We can do a silly freestyle dance like at the end of the video. Don’t overthink it. Just let yourself go. Have fun!’

For a couple of minutes, Theo stood there looking cool, his head tilted as he watched me making a fool of myself, but I didn’t care.

I pulled him towards me again and tried to wiggle his arms and make him shake his shoulders, but he resisted. So I lifted his arms up and started tickling him.

‘That’s a low blow.’ He started giggling. ‘Two can play at that game.’

As he started tickling me, I squealed and tried to run to the other side of the room, but he caught me, and as we both attempted to tickle each other, we crashed onto the sofa.

Theo landed on top of me and my breath hitched in my throat.

His face was now inches away from mine.

Suddenly we both went silent.

He brushed away a stray curl which had landed on my cheek.

‘You’re beautiful, Jessica,’ he whispered, his warm, sweet breath tickling my skin.

‘Th-thanks,’ I stuttered.

Our faces inched closer together.

I knew that kissing Theo wasn’t a good idea, but right now I didn’t care.

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