Page 156 of Desperate Actions

“Yeah. Northern Chinese. They make the best hand-pulled noodles here,” he says, pulling out a chair for me like a gentleman, though there’s nothing gentle about the way his gaze lingers on my mouth when I sit.

Then he turns and says something in perfect Mandarin to the elderly woman behind the counter.

My head jerks up.

What the fuck?

I stare at him, watching as he holds a short conversation with the woman in her native tongue, followed by what is obviously some familiar ribbing because he is blushing, and she is laughing.

His voice remains smooth and assured throughout the conversation.

She beams at him, then at me, nodding approvingly before bustling off to the kitchen.

The second he sits, I grip the edge of the table.

“What the hell was that?”

Sammy arches a brow, lips twitching. “What?”

“You—you just spoke Mandarin,” I accuse, still trying to process what I just witnessed.

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Since when do you speak Mandarin?”

“Since I was about ten and Mom and Dad took me to China.”

He leans back and watches my expression carefully.

“Do you speak any other languages?”

“Yes,” his answer is short.

“How many? Which ones?”

Sammy leans across the table and reaches for my hand.

“Why do you want to talk about this? Huh? What’s really wrong?”

“Nothing,” I begin but that’s a lie, so I stop. “I don’t know,” I say, and really, I don’t know what I’m feeling.

Sort of anxious, maybe.

I had to work hard in school just to graduate. Suddenly, I question if I am such a good match for Sammy. He traveled a lot and is well educated.

And me, I mean, I struggled for along time just to learn to read?—

“Hey, easy, Pixie. Me speaking other languages should not upset you like this,” he says.

“I just, I don’t like not knowing things about you.”

It’s lame, but I double down and stick to my guns. I shrug.

“Pixie, there’s a lot we don’t know about each other, but we have a lifetime to learn.”

I narrow my eyes.

No shit.

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