Page 29 of Needing You

Kate blinked. “Oh, you’re asking me? You want my input now?”

Ah, so not entirely happy about my arrival. “I always want your input.”

She pressed her lips together. “We hadn’t ordered wine.”

I gave her an approving grin, and pleasure pooled low in my gut as her cheeks flushed. Fuck, she was pretty, and now that I was sitting across from her, it was clear as day. This was where I belonged, and no khaki-pants-wearing wuss was going to take my place unlessshetold me so.

I snagged a menu and perused it, grinning when I found a promising option. “We’ll take the valpolicella for now. Who’s cooking tonight?”

The waitress blanched, eyes wide. “Uh, Chef Antonelli, sir.”

“Senior?”

“Uh, no?”

Poor thing. I’d thrown her for a major loop already, and here I was interrogating her. I shook my head with a friendly smile, hoping to ease her mind. “No matter. Thanks for being patient with me.”

“No problem, sir. I’ll be back with the wine.” She scuttled away, leaving me alone with Kate.

Not as alone as I’d like for us to be sometime very soon, but on our own enough to face what I’d just done. But as I’d come to expect from Kate, she wasn’t going to break easily. The woman was steel and grit, and fuck if that didn’t make her more alluring to me than anyone I’d ever met. She was sweet as a fuckin’ cupcake, the mother of my amazing son, and she got literally all the credit. But she’d done all that thanks to the determination and that glint in her eye that made me half hard.

“So, how was your date going?”

She swept a swath of hair over one shoulder. “You scared him off before I had a chance to decide.”

“Really? You hadn’t decided already? From my view, you didn’t seem to notice him much once I showed up.” I sat back in my seat, enjoying the darling blush on her chest and cheeks, and stayed out of the way while the waitress poured a sample of the wine and watched expectantly.

I slid the tall glass toward Kate. “You try it.”

With a slight press of her lips, she took the glass by the stem and tipped it up. The mask she’d affected slipped as her eyes closed softly, one long blink, and then she nodded and smiled at the waitress.

“Excellent,” Sidney said and filled our glasses with two healthy pours. She placed a new bread basket between us and delivered my clean water glass. Then she quickly replaced my silverware and the charger and bread plate. She’d done well.

“Thank you, Sidney. I appreciate it.”

She grinned. “Thank you. Take a moment, and I’ll be back to get your order.”

Kate’s attention was still on me. I’d bet a thousand bucks it hadn’t wavered a bit even though she currently perused the menu likethatwas the most interesting thing in the restaurant. Call me an asshole, but I knew I was. Just like I’d rather look at her, touch her, taste her, than anything on any menu.

“Are you going to order my dinner for me too?” she asked, folding the leatherbound list and setting it on the table.

“I hadn’t planned on it, but if you’d like, I sure can. I’ve eaten a version of everything on this menu and can recommend my favorites.”

Seemingly despite herself, she asked, “You have? How?”

I told her about working here after high school, doing every possible job they had, and knowing I wanted to be in the kitchen thanks to Mr. Antonelli’s way of doing things. When Sidney came for our orders, I grinned like a fool when Kate chose one of the dishes I’d recommended.

“So you showed up here to ruin my date because you know Brad from somewhere? He said he’d lived in New York. Is that where you know him from?” she asked, fiddling with the stem of her glass.

“What? No. I’ve never seen him before.”

“Then why’d you say you knew him? You acted like you recognized him as some kind of creep I needed to be saved from.”

I chuckled under my breath, sliding a hand through my hair because damn, I was a ballsy bastard, and of course she’d called me out on it. “I don’t know him. All I knew was he was sitting in my seat.”

Again, she didn’t seem surprised. She took a drink of wine, maintaining eye contact, then licked her lips before pressing a napkin to one side of her mouth.

Fuck. Me.I shifted a bit in my seat, hoping I wouldn’t spring a full hard-on here at the table.

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