Page 130 of Joker in the Pack

I tried not to shudder as I pressed closer to Nye, and he dropped my hand to wrap an arm around my shoulders instead.

“You okay?”

“Things are just getting to me, that’s all.”

“Nobody followed us to London, babe. You’re safe here.”

His words made my stomach unclench a little, and in Waitrose, Nye once again fetched a trolley and rolled it next to me.

“How much are you planning to buy?” Surely for one day’s worth of food for two people, a basket would be sufficient?

“Enough for a week, I guess. I hate grocery shopping. Unless you want to go every day; then I’ll join you.”

“You will?”

“I thought you said you liked cooking? I don’t expect you to. We can eat out otherwise, or I’ll get something delivered.”

“It’s the ‘we’ part I’m not sure about. You’re planning for us to be together all week?”

“You’re not?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead. I guess I figured I’d move in with Maddie for a while.”

“You don’t want to stay with me?”

I’d never seen him look crestfallen like that, and I stood on tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. We may not have been together for long, but now I’d spent the night in his bed, I never wanted to leave it. Yes, he could be mercurial, but he looked after me, and more than anything, he treated me as if I mattered. To Edward and Tate, I’d just been an accessory.

“I do want to stay. I just wasn’t sure you were ready for that kind of commitment.”

“I want you in my life and in my home and in my bed. Clear enough?”

“Crystal.”

“So, a week’s worth of food?”

“Yes, we’ll stock up.”

I walked the aisles in a daze. In the space of twenty-four hours, I’d gone from living in a cottage I’d tried my best to like without much success to staying in my dream apartment with a man way out of my league. I pinched myself as I walked down the bakery aisle, but the loaves of bread didn’t disappear.

“Got everything?” Nye asked as we neared the checkout.

“Yes. I mean no.” I’d forgotten the squirty cream. “I’ll be right back.”

Nye turned the can over in his hands before he put it on the conveyor. “Is this for both of us to play with?”

He hadn’t kept his voice down, and the checkout lady raised an eyebrow.

“Shh!” I leaned in closer, blushing. “I get first dibs.”

“Not gonna say no to that, babe.”

Back in Nye’s kitchen, I set to work. The place even had a state-of-the-art sound system built in. Nye walked in just as I was bopping around to Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love,” and when I turned and saw him, I went the same colour as the raspberry coulis I’d just whipped up to go with the lemon cheesecake.

Instead of laughing, he just whirled me around the kitchen island until the song ended, then leaned in for a kiss.

“My kind of cooking,” he said.

“I think I could be a convert.”

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