A Valentine Proposal

by Viv Royce

He laughed softly. “The only moment I have time to read a book is at night, in bed. Have you ever tried doing that flat on your back holding the book over your face? Your arms get tired, and the light is never right. The only way to do it is on your stomach.” He held her gaze. “And what’s your best childhood memory of reading in the summer?”

  She replied, slightly breathless, “We used to go to Cape Cod when I was a kid, and I loved reading a book on the beach, right beside the sandcastle I had just built.”

  “My parents have a cabin in the Catskills, and we used to go there all the time when we were kids. Tamela and I each had our own hammock in our own little bit of forest. Mine was orange.”

  Seems Mark and I have a lot in common.

  Reading-wise of course. Not necessarily in other departments.

  They were standing there, debating, while all the others had gone into the kitchen already to start cooking. “We’d better get going.”

  He gestured. “After you.”

  Can he actually cook? There was something special about a guy who could do more than boil an egg.

  In the kitchen, a buzz of voices enveloped them. Even though the pairs were based on their literary likes, that didn’t seem to translate into the same culinary taste as there was a heated discussion going on about the choice of recipes. Mark looked at the faces then at Cleo and grinned. “I eat anything, you?”

  “Me too. But I don’t like raw fish.”

  “And how are your cooking skills?” He wriggled a brow. “This looks like a pretty fancy place, and I don’t know all those cooking techniques.”

  “But you can do more than boil an egg, right?” she asked, inwardly holding her breath.

  “Are you kidding me? In college, I was famous for my pasta. All the dormitories ate at mine for my spaghetti Bolognese. I was a chef.”

  Cleo had to laugh at his elated tone. “Let’s hope there is a pasta recipe, huh?”

  They waited until the other teams had dispersed, some arguing, and looked at the recipe selection. Appetizers varied from a relatively easy to make carpaccio to tomato soup with fresh herbs, while the main courses covered lamb, steak, trout, or a vegetarian cauliflower rice with grilled zucchini.

  Clicking his tongue, Mark eyed her. “Cauliflower rice?”

  “It might be rather tasty.” Cleo suppressed a grin at his disbelieving expression. “However, I think you’ll want to show off your grill abilities, so we should take the steak.”

  “Great.” Mark seemed relieved. “You choose the appetizer and the dessert.”

  Cleo ran her eye across the options again. “As we have meat in the main course, we should start with something light and tasty. How about the baby lettuce filled with grilled cherry tomatoes and goat’s cheese? Nothing too difficult so we could be sitting down to it soon. I worked all day, and to be honest, my stomach is growling.”

  “Fine with me.” Mark nodded. “We can discuss dessert while we’re at it.”

  Cleo took the recipe for the appetizer to the table with fresh ingredients. What had to stay cool was in a small ice box to the left. Mark looked over her shoulder and then picked everything. He seemed to know his way around. She had pictured him eating out or going for deep fried meals with lots of veggies and reduced salt…

  She bit her lip not to laugh out loud. She really didn’t know a thing about him. He actually likes to read lying in a hammock in the forest!

  Mark carried their ingredients to the only free working space left. To their right, the teenaged girl was chopping tomatoes while the elderly lady she had been paired with studied the recipe.

  “All right,” Mark said, turning on the tap and holding the lettuce under the stream of water. “I’ll wash this, and you have a look what else we need to do.” He glanced at her. “So to the question ‘what classic did you never finish?’ you answered: War and Peace?”

  “Yes. I was so mad that Andrei didn’t get happy again. I mean, he fell in love with Natasha, and that was described so beautifully, and then she had to ruin it all by falling in love with someone who cared for nothing but adventure. I was too angry to read on.” She glanced at him. “I suppose you have another reason for not finishing?”

  “I discovered other Russian writers I liked better.” He grinned. “And who is your literary hero? Marco Polo?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure that he counted, because there’s this controversy about whether he made up that he was in China, but when I was a kid, his tales fascinated me. I wanted to be like him and travel the world.”

  “So why didn’t you?” He turned the lettuce over, some water drops splattering on him. “You could have gone to Asia and backpacked. It’s not that expensive, if you don’t mind staying at youth hostels.”

  “I guess…” Cleo frowned. “I wanted to do it with someone who would be enthusiastic about it, motivate me, instead of going all alone. And there was never anyone who wanted to travel with me.”

  Sounds a bit sad. She added, “I’m an only child, so I couldn’t charter a brother or sister. And I had lots of friends in college, but they had other ambitions. Wash the tomatoes in this bowl, then you won’t waste water.” She handed him a red plastic bowl.

  He dropped the tomatoes in the bowl and accepted it from her. Their fingertips touched a moment, and her heart skipped a beat. He looked up at her, his gaze brushing her face a moment, like a touch on her cheek. Her heart rate sped up.

  He filled the bowl with water and closed the tap.

  That he accepted her suggestion without defending himself or starting a discussion about wasting water was rather surprising. Her tendency to control how things were done didn’t sit well with everyone.

  Mark said, “You still have the chance to travel. If you don’t tie yourself down to this shop.”

  What does he mean? “There’s a big difference between sitting down on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea wishing you could go to China and actually doing it.”

  It sounded a bit lame and unambitious maybe, but Mark nodded and sighed. “I know. I love sailing. In college, I had a boat with some friends, and we took turns taking it out. I made plans to sail around the world after college. But my mother and Tamela were worried that something could happen to me, and then…I started work in the company. Soon I was completely cocooned into everything that had to be done and…”

  “Cocooned sounds like you feel locked up.”

  Mark took a deep breath. “You know, I wonder sometimes. We have so much, I mean, our generation. Our grandparents often had no choice at all. You grew up in a village that you might never leave. If your father was a cobbler, you became one. If he had a farm, you took over the farm. You married a local girl. You had children who could then take over the farm. Life was predictable, and maybe we would call it boring, but it was also…” He looked for words. “They were grateful to have food on the table, to have healthy children, to make it through another year. We’re constantly asking ourselves, ‘Can I do better, can I earn more money? Am I happy? If not, how can I get happy as fast as possible?’ Change jobs, change partners. Take a sabbatical, travel the world. But after a while, we still aren’t happy. And so it goes—on and on.”

  He gestured at her with hands full of tomatoes, water drops splattering away. “I have a very good life now, and maybe the things that I dreamed of should just stay dreams. I can sail on weekends, be out on the water, and enjoy the wind in my face. Would I feel happier if I quit my job, packed up my bags, and floated toward a tropical island? Maybe. But I can also choose to be happy now, here.”

  …

  With you.

  He looked into her eyes, let his gaze wander the lovely lines of her face. Her hair was made up into a bun at the back of her neck, and she wore intoxicating perfume. If he breathed too much of it, he’d forget what he was thinking, what he wanted to say.

  A pervasive smell drowned out the perfum
e. He turned his head with a jerk. Blue smoke wafted from a pan on a nearby stove. “Something is burning!”

  Cleo was already at the pan, picking up a lid from the nearby work space and putting it on the pan then turning off the heat underneath it. The stench seemed to fill the entire kitchen. The gentleman with the walking cane coughed and waved a hand in front of his face.

  “Sorry.” The teen girl lowered her head. “My fault, I was supposed to be watching that.”

  “We should both have been watching it,” the elderly lady said. “Instead, we were bickering about the ending to the Pride and Prejudice movie.”

  “You actually saw that?” Cleo asked.

  “Several times.” The lady beamed.

  “I have it on DVD,” the girl said. “We can watch it together some time. I’ll buy donuts. Extra glazed, with sprinkles.”

  Cleo smiled, and Mark couldn’t help winking at her. “Your Literary Likes party seems to have led to some unexpected matches,” he whispered as she came back to him.

  “I guess so.” Her suppressed laughter suggested she was thinking the same thing. The two of them were the most unexpected match tonight.

  Was it really that unexpected? There had been an instant click with Cleo when she’d been hidden inside her book castle, looking for a lost teddy bear. A princess in a book castle and he was the knight in shining armor, coming to…take her away from it all? Whisk her off to China or to Versailles? Or the wide open ocean where they would drift on a sail boat, nothing but the two of them and the azure water and the skies full of stars above?

  The images had a breathtaking intensity he wanted to draw into his life. He wanted to feel, live to the fullest, just be happy. But everything rational inside him bucked against the idea of giving feelings free rein. Think of Cleo’s happiness. Her future. Leave her in her book castle where she feels at ease.

  He straightened and said, “How do you feel about clothing regulations for employees?”

  …

  “Sorry?” The curt question pulled her with a jerk from the warm, comfortable feeling of standing close to Mark and hearing his laughter. Clothing regulations? Hadn’t Mom mentioned something like that?

  “You mean, waitresses having to wear aprons or something?” she asked, confused.

  “No, in our chain. We expect the employees to dress a certain way. A dark red blouse with black pants or a pencil skirt.”

  Well, at least it wasn’t green or beige, making her “a cardboard cut-out.” Nevertheless, Cleo could hear her mother laughing in the distance and saying, Told you so. Her shoulders stiffened, and her eyes pricked. Probably because people around her were chopping onions.

  Mark continued, “High heels for the women. My father thinks it’s more sophisticated.”

  “He has probably never stood on high heels for an entire day,” Cleo retorted. “It’s so impractical. I wear sneakers so I can climb on the stool to restock the top shelf or take down a book a customer can’t reach.”

  “Sneakers to go with a pencil skirt?” Mark pursed his lips. “I have to think about that look.”

  “Are you suddenly a fashion critic?” Anger bubbled inside of her. “You can’t be serious that I would have to wear the same outfit to work every day. I like to vary it. Have it tie in with a book theme or the season of the year.”

  “So at Christmas you wear a string of lights around your neck and ornaments for earrings?” he challenged. The atmosphere, which had been relaxed, was now suddenly charged, as if he was determined to outdo her in this discussion. Like he had with the bidding.

  He’s riling me, maybe even laughing at me. Don’t let him win.

  “I do have earrings with tiny ornaments on them. And gingerbread men. Non-edible.” Cleo sucked in air. “I’ve never worn a string of lights, but I could, if I wanted to. And that’s the point. It’s my decision, not someone else’s.”

  “Calm down.” He gestured at her. “I was only teasing.”

  “Really?” She gave him a hopeful look. “There will be no clothing regulations?”

  “Well, I can see that part of the particular appeal,” he lingered on the last word, “of the shop is your rather individual look.”

  Is that a compliment? Or not… “You think I’m weird.”

  “No. But different from everyone I’ve met before.” Mark leaned closer. “And that’s not a bad thing.”

  No one has ever said that to me before.

  “How is it going here?” The restaurant owner stood at their work space. “No appetizers done yet? You’re falling behind.”

  Flushing, Cleo rearranged the lettuce on the plate, and Mark put some tomatoes beside it. But as soon as the restaurant owner walked away, he poked her with his elbow. “We’ll be last of the class.”

  Left behind in the kitchen, the two of them. Her breathing quickened. “Pass me the goat cheese. And where’s the honey to drizzle on it?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Cheers.” Mark lifted his glass of table water to toast Cleo. She sat opposite him at a table in a far corner of the restaurant. It felt like their personal hideout, away from the others. What if this wasn’t an event, part of her Valentine campaign, but a dinner just for the two of them? Not for Valentine’s Day, of course, not as in a date dinner, but…

  A friendship dinner?

  Yeah, right, man.

  She touched her glass to his and smiled wide. The way that beautiful smile jumped to life in her eyes got him every time. Cleo’s face was something he could stare at for hours, as he stared at the ocean when he was sailing. Water was never the same for long. Its color changed with the way the waves formed or how the wind played upon it. He liked it when it was still and tranquil, deceptively innocent, but he liked it even better when it got wild and showed its power. He was an experienced sailor, and he always stuck to the rules, but he knew deep down that he wasn’t in control. The ocean was. She could tear up his boat and kill him if she wanted to.

  And he started to get this sinking feeling that if he spent more time with Cleo, looking at her intoxicating smile, she could reach out, take his heart, and then…she might break it and destroy him like James had destroyed Tamela. Taking something away that he could never get back. Trust in people, confidence, the desire to go out into the world eyes wide open, waiting for something good. After a deceit like that, a person was never the same.

  Not that he thought Cleo would deceive him. Not consciously. But maybe she didn’t feel about him like he felt about her, and hearing that from her, said out loud, would hurt more than he cared to imagine.

  He’d have to be careful around her. After tonight, don’t spend time with her anymore. After all, this was the last event of her Valentine’s campaign. He already had the figures concerning the shop. He had seen her ideas for it in action. He had set a date to talk to his father’s right-hand man, Graham to get his support for some of the ideas he had picked up here, ideas that might work for other small town shops. Graham had mentioned before that the location of a shop—urban versus countryside—and the size of the group of potential customers available should factor more into their decisions for the shops. A sort of tailor-made approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all. With Graham’s support, it would be easier to win over Dad.

  What more did he need? He could call it quits after tonight, report to his father, and move on.

  Trouble is I don’t want to.

  “You’re so quiet.” Her eyes seemed to want to see deep inside of him.

  “Probably tired.” He waved it off and focused on his food. “There’s always a lot to do when I go to a region to assess shops. My father doesn’t let me roll in and say I want shop A or B. He wants reports and assessments and arguments, pro and con. He puts the finger on it whenever I’ve been less than thorough.”

  “Yes, and I’ve taken up so much of your time. I feel a bit guilty about it.”

/>   “Why? I volunteered.” Mark cut up his steak. “I mean, I wanted to see how these things you mentioned to me worked so… This has been very interesting and helpful for the business.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Of course. I told you I was going to steal some of your ideas. I’m going to make a special file folder for it.”

  …

  Did he mean that? His tone was playful, but his serious expression contradicted that. He seemed to be a bit pensive, maybe even…sorry that he had to leave? After all, this night signaled the end of the campaign. It was over.

  A tight knot formed in her stomach. She wanted to ask him whether he would stay in the region, if he might come to the shop again. She’d show him some of the sights. Whatever.

  But wouldn’t it seem strange?

  Maybe she was misreading everything that had passed between them because she wanted it to be special. Butterflies filled her stomach every time Mark was near. The last person she’d have seen herself with. A city slicker with a rule book—a high heel dress code!—he wanted her to follow. He had said he might not do that, but if it was chain policy, could he make an exception for her? The way he looked at her suggested he might… He did say he’d never met anyone like me before. He wants me to be different.

  Nonsense. I’m making too much of it. Hadn’t she learned that expectations only led to heartache? In the past, she had expected Mom and Dad to show interest in her life, make time for her. They never had. And in turn, they’d expected her to join them in the law firm and she hadn’t, letting them down. It was better to pursue her own goals and dreams, not depend on others. Then I can’t hurt their feelings, and most of all, they can’t hurt mine.

  A weight pressed on her stomach, and she pushed her plate away. “I’m done.”

  “Me too. And you know what? You sit, and I’ll make dessert.” He was already on his feet, picking up their plates.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Let me surprise you.” He winked at her and disappeared into the kitchen.

  She leaned back and took a sip of her mineral water. No matter how firmly she had tried to talk to herself, something inside didn’t want to listen. Near Mark, a fuzziness enveloped her, whispering that everything was all right and she didn’t have to prove anything. She so wanted to believe he cared for her, for how she felt, for what she did, for what would become of her. That he now thought she was rather tired and he wanted her to sit and rest up a bit. And that he wanted to surprise her. With what?