Page 83 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

“Two, please,” he says, and we’re led to a table in a row of others, a long booth-like seat running along one side, chairs on the other side of the tables. Usually, this is where people would argue over the more comfortable booth side, but this table happens to be right in Drew’s line of sight. With a sigh, I start to pull out the chair, which would keep my ex at my back.

But Van tugs my hand until I realize he’s suggesting we both sit on the same side of the table on the booth seat.

Nuzzling my neck as we sit, he tells the hostess, “I hope it’s no trouble if we both sit here.” His lips drag over my shoulder, and my eyelids flutter closed as he speaks against my skin. “I just can’t get enough of her.”

If Van ever said those words forrealabout me, I wouldn’t survive them. I tuck them away to replay later.

I think about his words at the pool.Do you understand?

I hope so.

“Of course,” the woman says, quickly adjusting the plates and silverware before rushing away.

I angle my head slightly, giving Van a hefty dose of side eye along with a half smile. “Is this how it’s going to be?” I ask. “We’re going to give them a show?”

Van presses a quick kiss to my jaw, close enough to my mouth to make it water. It’s not the first time he’s done this. But it’s getting harder and harder to think of this as just something he does when he’s playing the part of pretend husband.

The urge to pull him closer and press my lips to his grows stronger each and every time. Right now, it’s almost unbearable.

He leans back—seemingly not struggling the same way I am—and offers me a full, wicked smile. “No.”

“No? But you wanted to sit on the same side of the table. Right in their line of sight. And now you’re being so … touchy.” I trail off, unsure how to describe the physical affection.

His smile is gone, and his eyes are warm and soft. “If you want to change seats, we can. But I know sometimes it can help to face things. Just to look right at them. I wanted you to be able to do that.” Under the table, he finds my hand. Squeezes. “And I didn’t want you to do it alone.”

“Oh.” I swallow, then link our fingers.

Once again, Van is challenging me, telling me to fly. Offering a safe space to land.

His lips brush my jaw.

While also torturing me.

“The rest of it,” he murmurs, “is just because I want to. I don’t care what he thinks. I only care about you. Do you want me to stop being so”—I feel his smile against my skin—“touchy?”

“Nope,” I say, fighting to sound normal and not completely breathless. “All that makes sense.”

“If you hadn’t guessed, physical touch is my love language,” he says.

“What’s a love language?”

“It comes from a book. I’ll see if I can share it through one of the reading apps you use when you’ve got your phone again.”

I shiver, a feeling like goose bumps rising but on myinsides. A reaction to Van’s simple statement about a book, about sharing, about phones, about the future. Aboutlovelanguages.

Calm down, I tell myself. But I am a tempest.

“So, this is okay?” he asks, pulling back to meet my eyes.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Because I need a moment to compose myself, physically and emotionally, I pick up the menus, slapping one to Van’s chest with a little more force than needed. Then I pretend to read my own while I’m actually working to slow my heartbeat to a steady rhythm again.

Throughout the dinner with our easy conversation and Van’s easy touches, I feel Drew staring—glaring, probably. But I refuse to look his way. Van offers up plenty of distraction. True to what he told the hostess, he can’t seem to stop touching me—tugging the ends of my hair, letting his fingertips graze the bare skin of my arm, tapping his foot against mine under the table.

Drew probably thinks we’re doing it to show off.

The thing is: I don’t care if Drew is watching.

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