Page 68 of The Grump I Loathe
“Sounds like we have a winner,” Eddie said. “I’ll message the nanny and text you the address.”
Between the rain and dropping Grace off, by the time we’d arrived at the restaurant, we were seriously late for our reservation. But I’d booked the table for the entire evening, dropping enough money to ensure they’d have rolled out the red carpet for us even if we’d shown up at midnight. As it was, the valet met us with a giant umbrella, and then we were escorted to a private dining area dressed in black silks, potted greenery, and dimly lit chandeliers. Eddie sat down, her jaw dropping, gushing about how beautiful everything was.
“You’re the most beautiful thing here,” I said. My eyes had hardly left her since we’d walked into the restaurant. She wore a dark burgundy dress with a plunging neckline and exaggerated sleeves, creating the appearance of wings. Her hair had been softly curled, and she wore a dark lipstick I’d tried not to ruin as I’d kissed her in the lobby of her building.
She dropped her napkin, flushing all the way down her neck as sheretrieved it, opening it on her lap. “Flattery will get you far,” she said, lips twitching.
“How far?”
“At least to second base.”
“Damn. Here I was aiming for a home run.”
“Better hope the food is good then,” she teased.
Given the way she spent the next thirty minutes moaning over every piece of food she put in her mouth, the food wasverygood. I wasn’t really able to tell, myself. I was so hungry to taste her that everything else seemed bland in my mouth.
I watched the way her eyes lit up with each funky little course, the flavor profiles questionable on paper but blending perfectly on the tongue, apparently—coffee marinated duck, for one.
“Enjoying yourself?” I asked.
“I don’t know how they pack so much flavor into such tiny dishes,” she said, radiating a kind of joy that made me want to lean in and be a part of it.
I knew Ishouldfeel guilty about dating her. Putting aside the work regulation, there was also the issue of the age gap between us, the fact that I was fresh off a messy divorce, and the fact that she was a relative newbie in an industry where my actions carried a lot of weight.
The optics were horrible, and I knew just how badly something like this could explode in my face. I remembered all Finn’s trouble with the press last year. The last thing I needed was to end up in some tabloid.
But then Eddie beamed at me as the waiter returned with the dessert—a buttermilk panna cotta with caramel apples, honeycomb, and marigold dressed in white chocolate and hazelnut—and I lost mybreath. I wanted to make her smile like that every day. I wanted to be the reason for her happiness.
“Oh my God, this is like sex on a spoon,” she whispered. “I want to drown in a vat of this. Is that an option?”
“I want to drown in a vat of you.”
She giggled, licking the spoon suggestively. “Smooth. Seriously, I don’t know how you don’t have this place on speed dial.”
I shrugged. “Once you have enough fancy dinners, the novelty sort of wears off. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a good meal, but I’m not dazzled by it anymore. And I like simple dishes, too—which is a good thing, since Grace prefers the grilled cheese I perfected back when I was her age.”
“Did you cook a lot as a kid?” she asked.
I nodded. “I figured it out pretty quickly,” I admitted. “And at least with grilled cheese I made sure we all had something hot to eat when Mom wasn’t in the mood to cook.”
“When did you have your first fancy meal?”
I hummed, thinking back, laughing a bit. “God, it was probably when Liam’s company started to take off. I think he took all of us out to dinner in LA to celebrate. I still remember being shocked by the bill at the end of the night. I almost dumped my champagne in my lap.”
Eddie sipped her wine, smiling at the story.
“So,” I said, shifting topics. “I noticed it was the nanny who greeted us when I dropped Grace off. You really weren’t exaggerating about Valentina working late, were you?”
Eddie shrugged, embarrassed. “She’s basically become Alannah’s new playdate since the separation. For all of Valentina’s complaints about Dad, it’s not like she does a better job of spending time withAlannah. Honestly, I’m sure everyone will be happy to have Grace spend the evening.”
“How are things going with the divorce?” I knew it was a touchy subject, and I tried not to pry, but on the other hand, if Eddie needed help—help I could give her—I wanted to know.
“Well,” she sighed, “My dad is still refusing to fight for custody, and Alannah is very upset. She’s distracted, even at gymnastics, and that’s making things more difficult since gymnastics was always where she felt she had control, you know? She fell really hard on the mat last week, and the only person she had with her was the nanny.”
I frowned, hating how upset Eddie sounded. “You said she did really well in the citywide competition?”
Eddie nodded, a proud little smile lighting up her face. “First place in her age division. She’s really good. Like Olympics-bound good. It just sucks because now it feels like the only reason Dad and Valentina talk to Alannah is to remind her about how hard she needs to keep working, and boy, if that isn’t a blast from the past. After their divorce, my parents used to do the same thing. Ignore each other and put way too much pressure on me.”
