Page 59 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

‘These are clever people. They know different accents; that’s the sort of thing they pick up on. What do you think of when you think of Spain?’

‘Home.’

Carmen thought of home, of the bodega, with a moment of such longing that it brought tears to her eyes. But as she reached for his sunglasses again he halted her, and handed her a napkin which she pressed into her eyes.

‘What do tourists think of when they think of Spain?’

‘Horse festivals?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Flamenco?’ she asked, because that was massive in Jerez.

But he held up his hand in a wavering gesture. ‘Try again,’ he said, and then picked up his own napkin and held it to the side like a matador.

‘Please!’ Carmen laughed. ‘Not bull fighting.’

‘I’ll tell you now, if you hadn’t lit up like a Christmas tree when she said Taurus, the next thing she’d have tried would have been Spain and bulls.’

‘Well, I would have walked off then.’

‘When you laughed about a proposal she knew you weren’t worried about a guy. You’d practically told her that wasn’t what was on your mind. So she deduced that you were wavering about going in because you were grieving.’

‘Yes!’ Carmen said, seeing it all so clearly now.

‘And then, when you got “sassy” about your hair, she took a guess that you’d given your mother some trouble growing up.’

‘No.’ Carmen shook her head. ‘She walked out when I was a baby.’

He offered her a grim smile—the only glimpse of emotion he’d shown since she’d told her little tale.

‘She had me at Taurus!’

‘Indeed. She could have said the sky was purple and you’d have looked up to check.’

‘I hate it that she played me,’ Carmen admitted. ‘And I hate it that I’ve eaten all my pancakes and you still haven’t touched yours.’

‘I don’t share,’ he said, as her fork hovered over his plate. ‘That’s why I don’t get played.’

Instead, he ordered her some more pancakes.

Brunch after sex was irregular enough, without sharing his pancakes on a Sunday!

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ he told her. ‘Grieving is hell.’

‘I can’t imagine you ever went in for a psychic reading.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but I did talk to my brother a lot in my head, and kept waiting for him to answer.’

‘Do you still?’

‘Sometimes,’ Elias admitted. ‘Were you close with your father?’

‘Most of the time.’ Her breath quivered as she thought of how difficult things had been between them after her mother had come back into their lives. ‘We were arguing near the end, but...’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I feel like we’re still arguing now. You see, my brothers and I are contesting his will. He’s left the family home to my mother, when he always said he’d leave it to me.’

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