Page 77 of And Then There Was the One
It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. “My dear Georgie. Are you flirting with me?”
“You see flirtation everywhere,” she said, affecting coolness but not quite managing it with the smile that kept wanting to spread over her face.
“That,” he said, pulling her toward him, “is not an answer to my question.”
She reached out to rest her free hand on his chest and tilted her head back so that their eyes could meet. “Isn’t it?”
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, and his arm snaked around her waist, pulling her flush with his chest. He tasted of sugar from his tea, and he smelled like whatever horribly expensive soap it was he used to shave. She wanted to sniff his skin. She wanted tobitehim.
She pulled back, pressing her face to his neck. His breath was in her ears and was the slightest bit unsteady.
“I’ll come with you,” she said, and then her teeth grazed his throat.
“You will?” he asked, breathless. “Did you just bite me?”
“Of course not,” she said, tilting her head back slightly sothat she could look at him. “What sort of woman do you take me for?”
“My very favorite sort,” he said, and the hint of color in his cheeks and the hungry look in his eyes as he regarded her meant that she did not doubt the truth of that response. “Do you mean it? You’ll come to London?”
“I do,” she said. “I think…” Here, she hesitated, feeling somehow frightened to voice the thought that had crossed her mind more than once in the past week. It felt so vulnerable to admit—and yet, she realized in a flash, there was no one she’d rather be vulnerable with than Sebastian. When had that happened? “I think that the reason I got sucked into solving murders—”
“Is because you’re a genius?”
“Hush.” She couldn’t prevent the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Is because I’m… bored. And I didn’t know how to admit it. And so solving the mysteries, it gave me—a sense of purpose, I suppose. I didn’t realize how much I’d needed that. And it’s not—it’s not an insult to this place to admit it. It doesn’t mean I love the village, or the people, any less, to want to go away for a while. Not forever—this is home; I know it’s where I’m meant to be.”
“That botanic garden won’t create itself,” he agreed with a smile against her hair, and something in her chest tightened at the knowledge that he considered her dreams no less important than his own.
“It won’t,” she agreed. “But… it won’t hurt to go with you for a couple of days, just… to see.” She laughed a bit uncertainly. “But Sebastian, I don’t—I don’t want you to throw yourcareer away and move to the middle of nowhere, just for me, if I get to London and decide I don’t like it after all.”
“But it’s not throwing my career away,” he said, and she frowned up at him. “It’s doing something I should have done long ago; it’s just that you’ve helped me see it.”
“But still,” she pressed; it would be so easy to relent here, so tempting to yield to the rosy view of the future he painted. But just as he wanted more for her, so she, too, wanted more for him. “Everyone underestimates you,” she continued now, more quietly. “You underestimateyourself, but I think you’re actually rather smart, despite your best attempts to convince me otherwise, and I want you to make a proper go at this. You deserve to have a job you love—one that will show everyone in your family how wrong they’ve been about you all these years. And if I return to the Cotswolds, and it would be better for you to remain in London—”
“No.” He gave a quick, decisive shake of his head. “It’s as I said—I can do this work anywhere. If I’m good enough at it—and I think I might be,” he added, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain, nearly shy, “then the clients will follow. I just want…” He looked at her with an expression of naked yearning. “I just want to be with you.” He searched her face, then added, “But there’s no rush, Georgie. With you and me, I mean. I’ll—” Here, he broke off, seeming to weigh his words carefully.
“You’ll?” she asked, her heart kicking up an irregular rhythm in her chest.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said, “for as long as it takes for you to realize that we belong together. I love you, Georgie.”
She blinked rapidly, staring at him, so handsome and rumpled and golden and perfect and, improbably,hers. If she wanted.
“I love you too,” she said, stumbling over the words in her rush to get them out. She glanced down ruefully at her worn, stained dungarees. “If you don’t mind…”
“Mind what?” he asked, his brow wrinkling.
“Mind the fact that I’m nothing like the women you must have known in London,” she burst out, waving a hand before her face. “I’m not—notpolished.”
“No,” he agreed, pulling her close. “You’re perfect.”
And before she could object, he kissed her again.
“How long will your father and sister be gone?” he asked, drawing back some indeterminate amount of time later. His hair was now looking even more tousled. She thought she rather liked it that way.
“A couple of hours, I should think,” she said, a bit breathless.
“Well,” he said, a sudden gleam in his eye, “if you need help packing, here in this large, empty house—”
“Mrs. Fawcett is in the kitchen,” she informed him, before adding thoughtfully, “Which is ideal, really, as I’m sure you’ll work up an appetite.”
