Page 34 of Summoning my Grumpy Demon Boss

“Hey.” The hunch of his shoulders makes my heart squeeze. There is something the matter. I wish he would have told me.

“Is everything OK?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. He still isn’t quite looking at me.

“Are you sure? You went all quiet.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry. I just feel bad for bringing you here. Look at it. I guess I’ve stopped noticing, but walking in here with you made me realise how tired and worn out this place is. And my family. You’re probably used to fancy dinners and expensive wine and world class restaurants.”

“Luke.” I stop him with a hand on his arm. “I love it. All of it.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

“I think it’s charming. Your family are charming.”

“Except for Noah,” he says ruefully.

I laugh. “I’m sure even Noah has his moments. But this is exactly what I needed tonight and I didn’t even know it.”

He turns a little more, finally looking at me the way he has been for the last few days. “It is?”

I nod.

The frown returns to his face. “I just thought...The wine! I didn’t even know. Noah had to tell me how expensive it is. And you brought it like it was nothing.”

I immediately wish I’d never brought the stupid wine. “Oh, Luke. I never meant to make anyone feel bad. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I’m a monster. I know how hard that makes things—”

I cut him off right there. “You know that doesn’t matter to me. In fact I like it.”

“Well what about the difference in how we were brought up? You’re used to fancy wines and dinners and expensive cars and lord knows what else. You could do so much better than me.”

I scoff. If he’s talking about Oliver, he couldn’t be more wrong. “You’re not a snob are you?”

“Me?”

I nudge him with my shoulder. “Seems to me you’re suggesting I don’t belong around you and your family because I’m some stuck up Sydney girl.”

“Aw, Mia—”

I laugh. “I’m teasing. But I’m not thinking that. So don’t you think that either, OK?”

He hesitates. I can see he wants to say something, but then he seems to check himself. He nods. “OK. Am I being an idiot again?”

I shake my head. “No. Just being sweet, as usual.”

There’s a pause and I’m tempted to lean my head on his shoulder. I’m not sure how he’ll react with his family around, though. And I don’t want to send mixed signals. The sex is one thing. Well, the foreplay or whatever it is we’re doing. When it comes to this more emotional side of things, I’m not sure where we stand. I’d like to call him a friend, but I’m not sure I have anything more to offer right now.

Luke sighs. “It’s just that before... I mean years ago, when we...” He glances behind us towards the restaurant. “You never called. Never messaged. And you never came back to Kraken Cove. I thought you didn’t want to see me. And fair enough. It was a dick move running off.”

Oh, I hate that he thought that. It’s the complete opposite of what I was feeling. Only, what with one thing and another, I never got the chance. We rushed off the next day. My dad had some last minute client to see or something. I forget the details. Then my parents paid for a big overseas trip. When I got back, Oliver wanted to get back together and, I guess, I put aside silly teenage things for real life. Suddenly those things don’t seem so silly, and real life doesn’t feel quite so real.

“I went to Europe that year.” I flick a tiny shell off the wooden pier into the water, suddenly feeling pretty stupid. “I thought when you ran off that you were done. That you didn’t want to see me again. I mean, I was younger and inexperienced. It can’t have been that great for you. And then once I got back from my trip I didn’t even bother trying to contact you. I figured you’d have forgotten about me by then.”

He laughs. It’s a soft sound, but it contains so much meaning my body is suddenly alive with awareness. “As if. I wasstill thinking about it—about you—years later. Right up until I met you again.”

I’m leaning closer to him because I can’t help it. All I want is for him to put his arm around me and let everyone know there’s something going on between us. Trouble is, I don’t have a name for it yet. Not when I broke off my engagement to another man today. Well I guess Oliver effectively broke it off a while back, but still.

---