Page 17 of Second Chance Christmas

“Obviously, something’s happened today, and you’re upset. So go and have a nice, long bath. Read a book or light a candle or whatever you do to relax, then come down and share a meal with me, a glass of wine and if you feel like it, tell me what’s going on, maybe I’ll be able to make you feel better, maybe I won’t. It can be good to open up, in my experience.” He shrugged. “Then, I’ll leave. No strings, no pressure. Just a meal, between you and your dad’s old friend.”

Her lip twitched with the hint of a smile, but it was so much more complicated than he was making out. Surely she needed to say no, just to preserve the semblance of those boundaries between them?

“It’s just dinner,” he reiterated, so it would be stupid to refuse.

She nodded once, her lips pursed together, and she left the room without another word.

Leonardo had spentenough time at Harry’s place to know it as well as his own. It was easy to find the ingredients he needed—and thanks to Harry’s permanent siege mentality, the freezer was well-stocked, the pantry too, so he set about defrosting a couple of steaks, boiling potatoes to mash, rinsing and slicing greens, and doing everything he could not to imagine a very naked, wet Cassidy in the bathroom upstairs.

I’m not having a bath with you.

“Wanna bet?” He muttered under his breath, mentally adding a bath with Cassidy to his before-I-leave-town bucket list.

Once the steaks were cooked and resting, he deglazed the pan with some red wine and beef stock, then set it aside. He was just on his way up the stairs to let Cassidy know dinner was ready when she appeared at the kitchen door and he felt as though he’d punched in the solar plexus.

Without makeup, her glossy dark hair brushed and pulled over one shoulder, and wearing a pair of plaid pyjamas, with fluffy red socks, she looked so beautiful, and so young. She looked just likehisCassidy. The Cassidy he would have reached for and pulled into his arms and kissed senseless just because he could, just because he wanted to.

He stifled a groan. “Good bath?” His voice was overly cheery. He tried to tone it down a notch.

“I needed it. I think I had a whole gingerbread house worth of dough in my hair.”

“You always were a messy cook,” he teased, but her face tightened and he wondered if she’d taken the joke as a criticism? He sure as hell hadn’t meant it as one. He’d loved how the kitchen always resembled a bomb having gone off when she’d been there. He’d loved cleaning up after her, because she’d always sat on the countertop with her legs dangling over the edge, chatting to him non-stop, and he’d just loved to listen.

Not for the first time, and likely not the last, he felt a yawning emptiness in his chest when he contemplated everything he’d lost when he’d ruined things with Cassidy.

“I’m not now,” she said, stiffly.

He frowned, turning his back so she wouldn’t see the reaction.

“Hungry?”

“I wasn’t.” She was standing close behind him, peering at the stove. He stayed still, liking the way it felt to have her near. “That looks delicious.”

“You still love steak?”

Her soft intake of breath made his nostrils flare. He turned then, found her eyes closed, her face tense. “Please don’t keep doing that, Leonardo.”

Leonardo. Leonardo. Why never Leo? He loved hearing her say the shortened version of his name. She was one of the few people who called him that. It meant something.

“Doing what?” He asked, voice calm even when frustration was flicking through him.

“Just…remembering all the stupid details about me.”

“I can’t help it if I remember.”

Her eyes opened, locked to his, and his breath stilled in his throat. There was such sadness in her expression, such awful, gut-churning grief, that he wanted to stop the world and fix whatever the hell was making her look like that. Unless it was him? Still him, after all these years.

“I’m sorry, Cass,” he murmured, not because he was sorry for remembering that she was a messy cook or that she liked steak, but because he was sorry for ever having done anything to bring her a moment’s pain. Guilt and regret burned in his esophagus.

“It’s fine,” she said, taking a step back, her expression one of forced brightness. “Let’s eat.”

He’d set the table in the dining room but somehow, it just felt more right to eat in here, in the kitchen. More intimate. More comfortable. More…them.

He poured two glasses of red wine—he’d run across the road while she’d bathed and grabbed one from his own cellar—and slid one across to her. “Thank you,” she murmured, not meeting his eyes.

Leonardo served up their dinner, and put his plate beside hers, though he noticed the way she shifted them apart a little, needing distance. Wanting space.

Message received.

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