Page 96 of Better Luck Next Time

He grabbed her wrist and tugged her away. “Did you learn that on Lifetime?” he teased.

“I’ll never tell. Maybe I’ll subject you to a marathon weekend. I hear there’s aWomen Who Killtheme this weekend.”

“I need to draw the line somewhere,” Finn said. “My bro purse is already threatening my man card. I’m worried the manly police will show up at my front door and demand I turn it over.”

Laughing, she pulled him to a stop. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” she said with a sly smile, “but I’m pretty talented with Photoshop. If they peel your man card out of your tightly clenched, manly fist”—she picked up his hand and playfully kissed his knuckles—“I can just make you a new one.”

“Thank God I have you in my life,” he said, his eyes dancing. “I’ll never have to worry about my Photoshop needs ever again.”

“I’ll still have to charge you,” she said, lifting her shoulder into a shrug. “A girl’s gotta make a living.”

“Of course,” he said, still grinning. “I wouldn’t dream of asking for a discount.”

She was still holding his hand, so she lowered it and laced their fingers together. They finished the tour like that, stopping at the booth to see the photos they’d had taken at the beginning.

“We don’t have to see them,” Adalia said as they waited behind an Asian couple who were arguing in a different language. “Everyone knows this is a huge rip-off.”

“No way,” he said, holding her in place with their still-linked fingers. “I want to see them.” He was still smiling, but there was a seriousness in his tone that told her this meant something to him.

When they got to the counter, she burst out laughing. “We look like an ’80s ad for tourism to New York.”

“Exactly. I’m getting this one framed,” he said.

It was a joke, to be sure, but she found herself wondering if he would. And if they’d look at it from time to time and remember this day—not as part of an almost forgotten past, but as part of a beginning. Their beginning.

They drove to the other side of the grounds and had lunch in the stable café, discussing the exhibits while Finn looked up George W. Vanderbilt on his phone and told her facts about the bachelor who had built the nearly 179,000-square-foot house, then married several years after its completion.

When they finished their leisurely lunch, they wandered the gardens, strolling hand in hand as they discussed the garden layout and their own gardening experience, or lack thereof. (Finn had apparently killed no fewer than fifteen shrubs before giving up on his front yard.) She told him about a show on Netflix they should watch about large garden designs to help inspire his selection of the next plants he would kill.

Finn found a bench under a long pergola, and they took a seat. He wrapped his arm around her back, and she rested her cheek on his chest, neither one of them speaking for a couple of moments as they watched butterflies dancing around a planting of chrysanthemums.

“This has been perfect,” she said with a sigh. “Thank you for my day at Pemberley. No one else would have made it this special.”

He kissed the top of her head. “We’ll do the costumes next time.”

Sitting upright, she turned to face him. “You’d really do that? Look ridiculous in a period costume for me?”

A smug look filled his eyes. “I don’t know aboutridiculous. I think I could pull off a morning coat.”

She laughed and gave him a soft kiss. “Yes, Finn. You definitely could. But right now, I’m more interested in what’s underneath this ridiculous shirt.” She placed a hand on his chest, her grin spreading. “And yes, you pulled off this ridiculous look too, but with great power comes great responsibility, which means we have to burn it when we get you home. Likeimmediately.”

“Miss Buchanan,” he said in his cheesy accent, but he sounded slightly breathless. “Isn’t it improper for an unmarried woman to be alone with a man in his home? He could do unscrupulous things.”

She gave him another gentle kiss, but this time she ran her tongue over his bottom lip. “One can only hope.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Before they went any further, he should ask her about Alan Stansworth. Because he wanted so badly for her to trust him. Heneededit. But the way she was looking at him…

“Race you to the car?” he asked.

Instead of answering, she started running, laughing hysterically while she did so.

He raced after her, laughing too, feeling exuberant in a way he’d only felt with her lately. They ran past a bunch of tourists who looked at them quizzically, not because they were running—locals came out here to run—but because they were running in their jeans and I Love New York shirts, bro bag and fanny pack bouncing. They passed thePrivate Eyeswoman from earlier, whose eyes bulged at the sight of them.

“Now he’s chasing her,” she shouted. “Dosomething, Bernard!”

Her husband had a look of alarm, but he didn’t attempt to follow them, and neither did she.

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