Page 139 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
Tom.
My heart skipped inside my chest, and a warm feeling spread through my body.
Wow.
I never knew her using a nickname like that for me would get me like this.
I closed my eyes and hugged her tighter. “That’s the first time you’ve ever called me that.”
“I—” Sylvie paused. “Really? I’m pouring my heart out to you, and after what we did last night, and you’re all fuzzy over me calling you ‘Tom?’”
I nuzzled my face into her hair, breathing in the oh-so-familiar scent of her shampoo. “Yes. Get over it.”
She sighed again, but I could swear I felt the twitching of her cheek against my chest. “You’re an idiot.”
“Only around you. Otherwise, I am an exemplary gentleman.”
“Yeah, that tracks. I have the scar to prove your idiocy, after all.”
I pulled back and cupped her face, brushing my thumbs over her soft cheeks. My gaze lingered on the silver-white nick in her skin. “I really am sorry, you know.”
“It’s fine.” She raised her soft gaze to meet mine. “Really. We were just kids. And it was certainly one way to get and keep my attention, don’t you think?”
I fought a smile. “A rather arse-backwards way.”
She shrugged a shoulder and finally loosened her grip on my shirt. “Thank you. For letting me vent it out. I should probably go home now.”
“No.” I circled my arms around her again. “Stay here tonight.”
“I can’t, I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’ll bother me if you leave.”
“Thomas…”
“What happened to Tom?” I grinned, nudging my nose against the side of her head. “Just stay here. Hazel and Julian are still at your place. Do you really want to go back there when you feel like this? No. Do you really think I’d let you go when you’re clearly not all right? Stay,” I whispered, pressing my lips to her cheek. “Just stay here. Please.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – SYLVIE
I hadn’t meant to call him Tom.
It’d just slipped out. Rolled off my tongue like it was second nature to me to address him so personally, so intimately. And when he’d smiled at me as if I’d given him the whole world on a silver platter, my heart had thumped so loudly I wondered if it was going to start a riot.
It still was. Thumping, that was. Not starting a riot. At least not yet. It was very much still a possibility.
This soft, gentle side of him was wearing me down.
The nuzzling and the whispered plea for me to stay wrapped around me, burying itself deep inside my soul, and I already knew the truth.
I wouldn’t be able to leave.
“I want to forget this wedding exists, just for an hour,” I admitted softly, my voice tinged with guilt. “I don’t want centrepieces or dresses or seating plans. I don’t want to think about flowers. I just want to... I don’t know. Do nothing.”
“Let’s do nothing, then,” he said in the same manner one would say to eat a piece of cake.
As if it were easy to forget this wedding.
As if it were that simple to just turn that switch off in my brain.
