Page 58 of The Scandal You Started
He moved to Rayna’s instruction and mounted the ramp with a wobble.
She was right there as she’d promised. Firmly against his back, keeping him balanced.
“That’s it. I’ve got you. You’re fine. Just lean forward a bit.”
He did as she said, and she gradually eased the pressure of her hands, allowing him to test his weight distribution with shuffling steps.
And well…maybe he’d been a little dramatic. It hadn’t been so difficult after all. Which led to the realisation he might have let Rayna see him behave rather unmanly for no reason.
Mortification pinched at his cheeks as he straightened his spine and cleared his throat. She appeared slightly to his side with a soft smile that lacked any judgement and a hand still resting against his back.
“How was that?”
“Fine,” he muttered stiffly. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“Though I wasn’t frightened,” he blurted.
Knowing amusement waltzed around in her charcoal irises as she smirked. “Mm-hmm.”
“I wasn’t.”
She chuckled at his expense, but even then, the sound landed a sweet kiss on the sore spot of his pride. “Okay, I believe you.”
“No, you do not. You are mocking me again.”
“There, there. It’s okay.” She tapped his back as if she were coddling a crying child.
“Why you—” he rumbled as she threw her head back and laughed.
Gritting his teeth, he grabbed her arm and pulled it out from around his back. She sank against his side as she wobbled through her chuckles and put up no fight when he clasped her palm in his and placed their entwined hands on the trolley’s handlebar.
“You are an infuriating little witch,” he said gruffly.
“So you’ve said. Multiple times.”
Bloody woods, he couldn’t remain irritated. It was impossible. His humiliated frustration was blowing away like dry sand in the wind under the gorgeous, audacious twinkle in her eyes.
He stared down at her, his glare wavering and mouth reluctantly lifting. She grinned back, a softness melting her teasing expression.
In the background, he could hear the mechanical voice of a woman warning them they were close to the end of the ramp, but he couldn’t focus on anything other than his Rayna.
Swallowing slowly, her lashes dipped, and her slim fingers shifted around his. Then she raised her gaze again and carefully extracted her hand from his, though he was reluctant to let her go.
She stepped past the trolley and off the edge of the ramp just as the wheels clunked against the speckled flooring. “No more husband jokes, by the way,” she threw over her shoulder.
Dominic’s hands locked around the handlebar as the chains precariously wrapped across his caged feelings rattled in disagreement. They tried noisily to convince him to pull her around and tell her she was wrong.
It hadn’t been a joke.
In fact, the blurred ghost of a person his heart dreamed of seeing in the petal-pink lace of a wedding dress was beginning to look a lot like Rayna.
No matter how impossible he logically knew it was.
Chapter 18
Dominic
