Page 82 of Coffee Break with the Billionaire

I know it would be—parts of my body tell me that. But the rest of me is worried that kissing her would lead to other things, and then with her leaving in days—

I don’t like thinking about it. So I don’t.

I invite her to carve pumpkins instead.

“Edie’s father brings in a truckload of pumpkins from his fields. Did you know he used to be the groundskeeper of the castle?”

“Edie is the daughter of a groundskeeper, and she’s eventually going to be the queen of Laandia?” Fenella’s archedeyebrows almost disappear into her hair. “That wouldn’t happen in most royal families.”

“Laandia’s royal family isn’t like most royal families,” I point out.

“I was with you on the dance floor when the king and Duncan did duelling guitars, so I’ll have to agree with you. Tell me more about why you’re carving pumpkins.”

“We get pumpkins, and a group of us get together and carve them, and set them out in front of the stores to decorate for Halloween. Kids around don’t go trick or treating from house to house, they come into town and go to the stores, and then there’s a party in the square for the older kids.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It is. It’s one of my favourite holidays.”

“Halloween always gets mixed in with my birthday, so I never really think of it as a holiday,” she muses.

“Feel like going with me tonight?”

Instead of answering, Fenella steps forward to wrap her arms around my waist. She’s hugged me several times, and each time, thanks to her footwear, she’s a different height. Today she wears flats, so I’m able to rest my chin on the top of her head.

“I want to do as much with you as I can,” she says into my chest. “While I still have time.”

I tighten my arms around her and hold on for as long as I can.

Chapter thirty-three

Fenella

The lights are onat The King’s Hat.

I’ve never been inside Kalle’s pub when there wasn’t a crowd around the bar and the pool table wasn’t filled with fishermen talking trash about their catches, storms, and whose boats are the biggest.

The pool table is full, but with pumpkins. A piece of plywood covers the green felt, and at least a dozen pumpkins sit on top.

Sheets of plastic cover most of the surfaces.

“No beer until the knives are away,” Edie calls over the din of people greeting each other.

Silas leads me to one of the few booths and I slide in across from him. A pumpkin sits before me, smooth and round and unyielding. Silas sets a knife and a spoon—a spoon—before me.

He brought me here because he thinks I fit in with Battle Harbour. The group of twentysomethings who work for a living. Socialize together.

His friends.

Silas brought me into a group of his friends, and I am not going to give him any reason to think that I don’t fit in.

I pick up the knife and eying the pumpkin, I stab it.

“What are you doing?”

“Making an eye.”

“You have to clean it out first.” He looks at me quizzically. “You know that, right?”

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