Page 64 of Disarming Caine

He pressed his lips to my cheek and the pain shooting up my hands faded, my heart rate slowing. What was this power he had over me?

“The truth tested how I felt for you. Everything was too easy before that and didn’t make me challenge anything.”

“Easy?” His eyebrows drew down. “Obviously, you were not paying attention to how hard I worked to convince you to go on a date with me.”

I laughed and tugged at the hair at his nape. “You know what I mean.”

“Our whirlwind.”

“At least a hurricane.”

He tilted his face down to mine, but I backed away from the impending kiss.

“No makeup transfers at your parents’ house.”

“No?” The corner of his lips rose into a smirk and the twinkle in his eye told me that distracting him with a kiss might have been a wiser idea. “Then I suppose…” He let go of me and reached to the flat top of the couch, where I hadn’t seen a small white jewelry box. “We’ll just have to exchange our gifts.”

Oh no.

I picked up my wrapped gift and handed it to him. “You first.”

“You can’t avoid my gift all night, you know. This isn’t like last night.”

I glared at his ridiculous smiling face and pushed my present toward him, not reaching for the box he held. “It’s nothing extravagant...”

He placed the jewelry box back on the couch, took my gift, and sat. “Is it from your heart?”

“It is.” I sat next to him.

“That’s what matters.” He peeled back the wrapping and box lid, casting me a sidelong glance as he went through layer after layer of tissue paper. When he revealed the dark brown calf-skin cover of a book with a ribbed and cracked spine, the continual smirk slipped. He shook his head as he ran a hand over the weathered cover with its stamped surface.

I nudged his arm. “You going to open it?”

He blinked slowly and pulled it out of the box, cradling it in one hand, as though it was already precious to him. Using the red silk bookmark I’d placed inside, he slid it open to a page near the middle, his jaw falling slack. He touched the yellowed page, running fingers over the little stains and cramped writing.

Energy zipped around my chest while he, for once, was silent. “So? What do you think?”

He dragged his eyes away from it, up to me. “A copy ofThe Merchant of Venicefrom 1637? And you complain I spend too much on you?”

“It—” A lump lodged in my throat, so I flipped the pages to the inside cover. There were four inscriptions, and I pointed at the last one.

He read, “To the man who hath music, May your spirit continue to shine like the sun and your affections remain as bright as Eros. All my heart, Samantha.” He covered his mouth with a hand. “This a is play on Lorenzo’s speech to Jessica?”

I nodded. “Read the inscription above it.”

“My dearest Deborah, I am so proud of you. Congratulations and well deserved. All my love, Charles.” He shook his head and looked at me.

“My dad gave it to my mom when she graduated from law school. Her will said we had to keep it, but it’s just been collecting dust all these years up in Cass’s attic. I thought it was appropriate, considering how—”

“How you love finishing my Shakespeare?”

“Yeah.”

He turned several pages, running his fingers delicately across each thin sheet. I watched, visions of my mother reading and re-reading it coming back to me. After my father left, she never spoke of him. This book must have made her think of him, so how could she keep it after he abandoned her with two kids?

Maybe Antonio owning it could redeem it.

“This is...” He shook his head. “I’ll send it to a friend in Boston for repairs. He’s one of the best in the business.”

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