Page 19 of Moonlit Temptation

“I didn’t know you were here,” I admitted to him once the flutters in my stomach settled.

I kept my gaze down, trained on my scuffed boots as we walked.

“I wasn’t even sure if I was going to text you.”

His gaze burned into the side of my face. Studying, waiting, watching.

“I didn’t want to ruin your last night in London, to make you feel like you had to come babysit me.” I still wasn’t looking at him, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mouth open to say something.

I didn’t give him the chance. “Maybe I should say sorry, that I probably ruined your night, but I’m not. Not even a little. This is the best birthday I’ve had, Saint. So I’m glad you said yes.”

I got a couple steps ahead before I realized Saint was no longer walking next to me. I stopped, turning around to see him under a tree. He was wearing an unreadable expression.

Quickly, I rushed over to him. “Oh my God, I ruined your night, didn’t I? You didn’t really want to do this.” I covered my mouth with my hands to stifle my groan. Oh, God.

Saint silently reached out to move my hands away, not letting them go as he brought them to my sides.

He stepped closer, that unreadable expression still on his face as he whispered, “I’m glad you asked me, Madelayne. There is no place I’d rather be right now.”

I stared up at him, lost in his eyes, searching for words to save me, but Saint didn’t wait for me to get there.

He jerked his chin to keep walking and I trailed after him, almost dazed while his words stuck with me.

At the end of the street, Saint hung a right and we came to this little square of shops and restaurants.

A street musician strummed a guitar next to the fountain in the middle of it all, getting lost in the music.

Saint and I stopped walking to take everything in. People sat on patios of restaurants with drinks and desserts, young couples walked hand in hand down the sidewalks while others danced to the soulful guitar.

“I used to live in that flat,” Saint told me, pointing to the building on top of a pub. “After I graduated from college.”

“I remember.” He sent me a postcard of his street, the very apartment we were looking at was circled in a big fat black marker.

Saint sent me postcards every month while he lived here.

I was so upset the day he moved away for college. Angry at Honeycutt for chasing him away.

I felt abandoned. Forgotten.

Trapped in that gilded cage I was desperate to escape from.

I still remembered the emptiness in my chest as Saint said goodbye.

After my mom died, I was afraid to let people in, which probably explained why I went to school with the same people since kindergarten and only called a select few friends, even keeping those people at a distance.

The only person who got through those defenses, that wall and moat I put up, was Saint.

And he left me, just like my mom did.

“It’s in that flat that your brother and I came up with the idea for our company.”

I nodded, remembering hearing about it months later when Saint moved back home.

It was at Sunday dinner where the boys told my dad of their idea and plan to launch the business. I spent the entire dinner silent at the far end of the table, listening to Saint regale my father with the details of London.

I also remembered how I strained my ears, listening for talks of a girlfriend. Of someone who was warming his bed. He never mentioned one, which made my heart soar.

I was far too young to have an opinion on who Saint dated, but even if I knew it wasn’t going to be me, I still wished it was.

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