Page 65 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
Thomas blinked at me for a second. A slow smile spread across his face, and there was an almost cocky glint in his eye when he asked, “Is that whyyou’resingle?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – THOMAS
Sylvie looked me dead in the eye and didn’t so much as twitch. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for her to say it outright like that.
Shit.
I’d walked right into that one. I had nobody to blame but myself. I’d asked; she’d answered.
Her lips slowly curved into a wry smile. “Cat got your tongue, Thomas?”
I held up my hands. “I walked into that one. Well played.”
She lifted the wine glass to her lips and sipped. Her blue eyes shone with laughter, and little crinkles of happiness creased at the corners of her eyes.
Goddamn.
She was beautiful.
“Well, that was fun,” she said brightly, pushing her hair behind her ear. “But I really need to get going or I’m going to hate myself in the morning when I have to wake up and fix this veil situation.”
She tucked her phone and purse back into her handbag, and I watched in amusement as she pulled the phone back out and paused.
“Problem?” I asked.
She met my eyes. “I don’t know the taxis here anymore.”
I pulled my keys out of my pocket and held them up, giving them a little jingle for good measure.
“No.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“No,” she responded. “This is getting a little too friendly for my liking.”
“If I let you whip me with your scarf, will that make you feel better?”
“Probably, but it’s hardly guaranteed,” she retorted. “You’re not taking me home again. Do you know how much my grandparents will go on at me about how we’re both single? Christ, I’d never hear the end of it. Absolutely not.”
“Come on, Sylvie. I’m not going to abandon you and make you find your own way home when I’m perfectly capable of driving.”
“You’re not. I’ve seen you drink two beers.”
I picked up the empty bottle and pointed to the label.
She leant forward and tilted it towards her. “Ah,” she said. “Zero percent alcohol. Well, there goes that argument.”
Laughing, I put the bottle down and stood up. “You have no argument aside from, “I don’t want to.””
“Which is a perfectly good argument,” she pointed out, reluctantly getting to her feet. “The word ‘no’ is a complete sentence.”
“You’re absolutely correct, but that’s rather useless when you’re stressed, more than a bit tipsy, and it’s already below freezing outside.”
“I’m going to need you to stop making good points.” Sylvie pulled on her coat and zipped it up, then tugged gloves out from the pockets. “It’s making it terribly difficult to argue with you, and I’m getting annoyed about that.”
“Would you rather I leave you outside to freeze?” I unhooked my coat from the stand by the pub door and slipped my arms into it before also taking my hat and gloves. “If you really, really want to become a snowman, I can do that.”
