Page 18 of The Saint

He smirked. “I’m all yours, sweetheart.”

“Ooh…what should we do?”

“I don’t care as long as you’re naked.”

I smiled and nearly rolled my eyes, but instead, I speared a piece of pasta with my fork and popped that into my mouth.

“You must like this place. You’re here nearly three times a week.”

That meant he watched me on his phone often. “I love their raspberry croissants.”

He smirked and continued to eat.

“What?”

“Those are my mom’s favorite too.”

“Well, she has good taste.”

“Guess so.” He continued to eat, inhaling his food like usual, arms on the table as he towered over his meal. “We havea wedding this Saturday. Totally slipped my mind until Luca reminded me.”

“We, as in you and me?”

“Did you think I was going to take Gerard?”

The chuckle escaped uncontrollably. “I’d love to see that.”

“He’s not my type.”

“He does all your cooking and cleaning and laundry, so he better be your type.”

His smile could win awards. “You’ve got me there.” He grabbed his sandwich and took a big bite, a manly bite. He chewed as he stared at me across the table then glanced at the book I’d been reading. “The Chateau. Any good?”

“I like it. It’s about these two sisters who get trafficked working in a labor camp, and while the older sister is there, she falls in love with one of the guards…who ends up being more than a guard—and that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

He gave a slow nod. “That does sound good. You like romance?”

“I read everything. I just finishedMistbornby Brandon Sanderson.”

“I didn’t know you liked to read so much.” He continued to eat, but his eyes were glued to my face like he was truly enraptured by my words. He wasn’t half listening, but actually invested in what I had to say.

“I used to want to be a literature professor.”

“What changed?”

“Well, I got married, and that dream kinda just died…”

“You still have time—if that’s what you want to do.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to work?”

“I said I don’t want you to workformoney,” he said. “Working for passion is very different.”

I’d have to return to university and take classes and write dissertations and spend the next six years of my life studying and writing papers, and that sounded like so much work now that I was almost thirty. “I’d rather read whatever I want in a café and wait for my man to wake up than lecture a bunch of undergrads.”

His eyes lit up as if he liked that answer. “You seem to be adjusting well.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t miss the office.”

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