Page 47 of The Billionaire's Kiss
Chapter Nineteen
Warner
It had finally arrived—our last night together. Early the next morning, she’d be leaving to go back to Ireland. I didn’t want her to go. I didn’t care if that was selfish of me. I wanted her to stay with me—forever.
I’d taken her to San Antonio to see the Riverwalk. I’d rented us a room in a hotel so we could sit on the balcony and see the lights from above.
There was so much more that I wanted to take her to see, but I’d run out of time. “I wish I hadn’t waited so long before I decided to take you around the state.”
She and I sat in the front of a gondola, a man with a long stick moving us through the San Antonio river. Darkness had just fallen, and both sides of the river had sprung to life. Mexican music played, people laughed, and the good-time vibe was everywhere.
“Let’s not have any regrets about our time together. It moved at the pace it was supposed to.” She leaned against me. “This is so festive. I adore it.”
“Good.” Wrapping my arm around her, I didn’t want to ever let her go. “Later, we’ll go eat at one of these Mexican restaurants, and you can try out their specialty margaritas.”
Her eyes glistened as she smiled. “Sounds delicious. And after that, what will we do?”
“I was hoping we’d go up to our room and make love like rabbits until we tire ourselves out.” A sigh came out of me, as I was already missing her, and she wasn’t even gone yet.
“That sounds like a good plan, babe.”
The gondola pulled to the side. “Here’s your stop. If you’ll stop and stand in front of the mirror there, we’ll take your photo for you. You can pick it up at the hotel’s front desk and see if you’d like to buy it or not.”
“Wow, that’s so nice.” Orla grabbed my face, pulling me down to her and kissing me as the photo was being taken. “Now, that’s a keeper.”
“I’ll buy a copy for each of us.” Taking her hand, I led her to one of the more festive restaurants. A mariachi band was playing next to the entrance. I tipped them as we passed. “Keep it happy, mi amigos.”
My heart felt melancholy. I had to keep things as happy as possible, so I wouldn’t start bawling like a baby. We only had one more night—I couldn’t mess it up by sulking.
After being seated at a table near the water, Orla looked at the menu. “So, there’re all these types of enchiladas. Are they good? And if so, which kind is the best?”
I looked at the menu and saw a sampler plate. “I think you should taste them all. Did you see the sampler plate, baby? It’s got one of each enchilada and three kinds of mini tacos, a chalupa, rice and beans, guacamole, and sour cream, as well as pica de gallo.”
“Warner, that’s way too much food for me. I’ll never eat all that.” She just shook her head.
I took the menu out of her hands and put it to the side with mine. “You don’thaveto eat all of it. I’m going to get the three-meat plate, carne guisada, el pastor, and camaron with rice and beans and flour tortillas on the side. We can share so that you can get a taste of everything. We can get whatever’s left over in a to-go box and take it to our room.”
“That’s so much food. We’ll never eat it all.” Her frown turned upside down when she saw the drinks coming our way. “The margaritas are huge!”
I gave the waiter our order as Orla sipped her drink through a straw, a smile on her face. There was no more worrying about the amount of food we were getting.
Drinking my margarita, I watched Orla as she looked around at everything. “You seem to like this setting the best, Orla.”
“It’s so festive. It’s sort of like how we do things back home. So much laughter. So much food. So much alcohol. It’s what I’m used to. But only on special occasions, not on a daily basis.”
As she spoke, I stared at her, wanting to memorize every part of her. I knew I would never be able to forget the green of her eyes. So pale in some ways, yet vibrant in others. Pale green littered with flecks of gold, it seemed that they could go from light to dark and then back again. The smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose would always make me smile when I thought of her.
When the food came, I enjoyed watching Orla’s reaction to each bite she took. Shoving a tortilla chip deep into the fresh guacamole, she sang, “I love guacamole!”
I love you.
Since there was no way I’d be telling her that, I made a note to get her copies of all the recipe books we had for our restaurants at the resort. At least she could do a little Tex-Mex cooking for her family now that she knew how it was supposed to taste.
I took a shrimp off my plate and dunked it into the queso dip. “I prefer this cheese dip to the avocado dip.”
She picked up another chip and tried the queso. Another smile lit up her face after she ate it. “Yum. Everything is so good.”
Neither of us wanted to completely gorge ourselves, so we got the remainder to go, along with a couple of margaritas, and headed up to our room.
