There was one more thing he wanted to buy for Cassie.
Chapter Ten
As soon as Blaine dropped his shopping bags on the floor, Cassie scurried over and gave him a kiss.
Yes, he could certainly get used to coming home to her.
He was still taking off his shoes when she pulled the first dress out of the bag.
“This is nice!” She held the dress up to her chest. “I love burgundy.”
“Burgundy?” What was that? A color? Why not just say it was red? “You can try on the dress right here. In front of the full-length mirror. I don’t have one in my bedroom.”
She slipped his T-shirt over her head and pulled on the dress.
As the shop lady had assured him, Cassie looked gorgeous in it. He pulled her toward him and kissed her lips. Her arms wound around his neck. He put his hand on the zipper and was about to undo it when there was a sharp knock on the door.
She jumped back.
“Probably a salesperson,” he said. “They’ll go away in a moment.” He pressed her against the closet door, but there was another knock.
Dammit.
“Maybe you should get that,” she said.
He opened the door with a sigh.
His friends Matthew and Sara were standing on his doorstep. Sara was carrying a baby car seat.
“Hey,” Matthew said. “Are you… Oh.” He froze in place. “You have a girl over?”
Great. Just what he needed. They had terrible timing.
“This is Cassie,” he said. “My girlfriend.”
Matthew’s eyes widened, as did Sara’s.
Blaine felt compelled to fill the uncomfortable silence with more of an explanation. “The woman I’m going to marry.”
There was certainly no silence now.
“What?” Cassie said, whipping her head around.
“What?” Sara squealed.
Matthew laughed. “Looks your girlfriend didn’t get the news. You sure move fast.”
Cassie held up a hand. “I’m not even his girlfriend. It’s just more convenient than telling the truth.”
“Now I’m definitely intrigued,” Sara said. “But I better put this little girl down first.” She took off her boots and walked in with the baby.
Blaine glanced at the sleeping Victoria. He’d last seen her when she was a week old and a bit funny looking, but she was cute now.
Still, she sort of freaked him out, which was how he always felt around babies. Could Victoria even lift her head yet? Matthew had tried to get him to hold her last time, and he’d refused, convinced he would do irreparable damage to the tiny baby. He liked young children, but little babies who did nothing but cry, poop, sleep, and drink milk weren’t the same.
“Oh, she’s so sweet!” Cassie gushed. “How old is she?”
“Six weeks,” Matthew said, making himself at home on the couch. “Her name is Victoria. So how did you meet Blaine? And when did this happen?” He gestured vaguely between them.
“You haven’t mentioned a woman in years,” Sara said to Blaine. “Tell me everything.”
He was a bit overwhelmed. What should he say? And why were his friends here? Maybe he should start there.
“Did we have plans?” he asked.
“We did, indeed,” Matthew said. “Sara is hosting a bachelorette party for her sister tonight. You and Victoria and I were supposed to hang out for the evening, order some pizza, and watch the hockey game. Sara just stopped by to see your new place.”
“And you, of course,” she interjected, touching his arm.
“This is Matthew,” Blaine said to Cassie. “And his wife, Sara. We all went to university together.”
“He was a much better student than I was,” Matthew said. “But I still graduated, so it’s all good.”
“Thanks to my help in differential equations,” Sara said smugly.
Blaine wanted to get this sorted out in a hurry, then get back to finishing Cassie’s fashion show. The red—well, burgundy—dress looked great on her, and he wanted to see the others. And give her the other thing he’d bought for her.
“So I’m guessing,” Matthew said with a grin, “that I’m unwanted and should find something else to do for the evening.”
“I wouldn’t say unwanted.” Though that was precisely the truth. “But…”
“I get it.” Matthew held up his hands. “We’ll leave soon. Once we get the full story. We’d also like a brief tour of the house you bought with your inheritance.”
“Inheritance?” Cassie said questioningly.
Oh God. Why couldn’t Matthew keep his mouth shut? Time for some damage control.
“Why don’t you two come upstairs with me?” Blaine said. “I’ll show you around. Cassie can keep an eye on Victoria. Okay?” He hurried up the stairs before anyone could protest, and his friends followed.
Matthew poked his head into the master bedroom. “What’s that on the bed?”
“It’s Cassie’s beaver costume. For Halloween.”
Matthew snickered. “Sure it is. I bet you’ve got some really weird rodent fetish.”
That comment rendered Blaine speechless. Did his friends seriously think he was that weird?
Matthew slapped him on the back. “I’m kidding. Now, why don’t you tell us what’s going on? Perhaps starting with how you met her?”
Blaine knew he would have to tell the truth sooner or later, so it might as well be now. He led Matthew and Sara to his office, and they sat down.
“The summer before last, I—”
“Wait. You met her more than a year ago, and this is the first I’m hearing about it?” Sara said.
“Shut up and let him tell the story,” Matthew said, looking at his wife fondly.
“Okay,” Blaine said. “So do you remember the summer before last, when I went on that camping trip?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I didn’t actually do any camping. I met Cassie at a Tim Hortons on my drive out of Ottawa, and I, um, went back to her place. We spent the week together.”
He was comfortable talking about sex with Cassie. But with his friends, it was a different story.
“You just growled, threw her over your shoulder like a caveman, and that was that?” Matthew said, laughing. “Or was there a little more finesse to it?”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “Please. I have moves.”
“I remember that one time in undergrad, we were at a party and you—”
“Shut up.”
“Okay, okay.” Matthew held up his hands.
Blaine hesitated. “With her, it’s different. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just knew she was special, and everything…well, it just happened. And then at the end of the week, I went back Ottawa, and we didn’t see each other again. Not until yesterday.”
Matthew and Sara exchanged a look.
“Come again?” Matthew said. “You spent this amazing week with a woman, and then you didn’t make plans to see her again?”
“That would be correct.” It seemed logical at the time.
“Are you a total idiot?”
“Apparently.” He paused, glancing down at his hands. “I didn’t think it was anything real. I mean, it was just one week, and I was…not really myself. After my dad…” He didn’t want to go into details about the complicated emotions that had been swirling inside him about his father’s suicide.
Sara reached out and squeezed his knee.
He knitted his fingers together and continued to stare at them. “She made me feel normal again after my dad died. But I didn’t think it was anything more than that. I told her I could only give her a week. I refused to even tell her my phone number or that I lived in Ottawa. But ever since, I’ve been unable to get her out of my mind.” He picked up a pen and started fiddling with it. “So I went back to see her yesterday, and now she’s here for the weekend. Unfortunately, she’s still kind of pissed at me—”
“Understandable,” Sara said.
“But I bet h
er that she wouldn’t be able to walk away from me on Sunday night.”
“And now you’re having lots and lots of sex in order to convince her,” Matthew finished.
“Something like that.”
“Let me tell you a few things that are guaranteed—”
Sara smacked Matthew’s head. “Stop talking about our sex life.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about our sex life. Just a few pointers.”
“Except I’m the only woman you’ve slept with, so—”
“I can’t wait until you have your postpartum exam so we can start having sex again,” Matthew muttered.
Blaine dropped his head in his hands. “Guys, can we please put an end to this conversation? I need you to get out of here so I can continue wooing Cassie. I only have one weekend. And I assure you, I do not need help in bed. I just need…time.”
“I should head out, anyway,” Sara said, rising. “The girls are coming over in half an hour. Matthew, I’ll see you tonight. You can go to my mother’s with Victoria if you like, since Blaine has other plans.” She gave her husband a kiss on the cheek and walked downstairs.
Matthew leaned forward. “She’s the one, eh?”
“She is,” Blaine said.
“Word of warning. You came on a bit strong with the whole ‘girl I’m going to marry’ business.”
Blaine grimaced. “I figured that out, thank you. But it’s too late now.”
Matthew slapped him on the back. “Good luck. Call me if you need any more advice.”
“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’ve got it covered.”
“Ask her to come upstairs to see your ammonite collection.”
“Actually, she’s already seen it. I keep it downstairs.”
Visions of her walking around naked in his living room after giving him a blowjob jolted through his mind… He almost groaned aloud.
“I won’t ask what you’re remembering right now,” Matthew said. “I don’t want to know. Probably has something to do with that rodent fetish of yours.”
Five minutes later, Matthew was out the door with Victoria, and Blaine was alone with Cassie once more. She was still wearing the burgundy dress, and she was still the woman he wanted to marry.
But surprisingly, that wasn’t the first thing she brought up.
“Your inheritance,” she said gently, studying his face. “Did a grandparent die?”
He shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about this now, but he wouldn’t lie.
“My father,” he said. “Last year. Three months before I met you.”
She wrapped him in her arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s why I was pretty messed up when we met. It was a huge shock. He was sixty-two, and he wasn’t sick. That I knew of.”
She held him for a minute but seemed to sense he didn’t want to say any more about it right now. “I like your friends, and Victoria is adorable.” She paused. “It’s nice to see a different part of your life. Before, you tried to tell me as little as possible. I held onto every scrap of information. Like, you love artificial banana flavor, and you liked when you had to take amoxicillin as a child. And you told me about crinoids, the marine animal. You usually just see cross-sections of the stem in the fossil record. Little donut shapes. But if you see the whole thing, they look a bit like flowers. Do you have any idea how many times I Googled ‘crinoids’ because it made me feel closer to you?”
“I framed the watercolor you gave me,” he said.
“I saw it on your bookshelf.”
“I look at it every day and think of you.”
She didn’t ask him why the hell he’d waited a year when he thought of her all the time.
“How about you try on the other dresses?” he suggested.
He’d also gotten a light brown dress with a V-neck and a blue dress with something called a boat neck. Women’s clothes had so many different necklines—he’d never really noticed that before. Cassie didn’t like the blue dress, but she liked the brown and burgundy ones.
“Keep them both,” he said. Frankly, he thought she looked amazing in all three.
“Which one should I wear tonight?”
“The brown one.”
“Because it shows more cleavage?”
“You got me.”
She laughed.
“Cleavage is a geology word, you know. Imagine how entertaining that was to a bunch of nineteen-year-old university students.”
“Oh, I can imagine.”
He reached into a bag and pulled out a box from the jeweler. “One more thing.”
“Blaine, you didn’t need—”
“Hush,” he said, opening the box. It contained a silver necklace with a small heart pendant. “May I?”
She hesitated but finally nodded, and he fastened it around her neck.
“I love you,” he whispered.
She opened her mouth, then closed it, without saying the words he so desperately wanted to hear.
Chapter Eleven
When Cassie saw Blaine dressed up for the first time, she had to remind herself to breathe. His suit was gray, his shirt was white, and he looked like a dream.
There was only one problem.
“Your tie,” she said. The navy color was nice, but…
“Did I do it wrong? I don’t wear a tie very often.”
“It’s crooked.” She stepped toward him until they were very close together. She could feel the heat radiating off him. “Let me fix it.”
He put his hands at his sides as she untied it, looped it around his neck again, and knotted it correctly. Her fingers itched to unbutton his shirt and touch his chest, but she behaved herself. They had reservations in half an hour, and she wanted to go on a proper date with him, something they’d never done before.
And then he would have his way with her.
Her skin prickled almost unbearably.
“Thank you,” he whispered. He held out his arm, and she put her hand in the crook of his elbow.
He drove them to an Italian restaurant. Dim lighting, white tablecloths, a single red rose on each table.
So romantic.
As they followed the hostess to their table at the back, Cassie noticed a couple of women looking in their direction. Looking at Blaine.
Yeah, sorry. He’s with me.
At least, for tonight.
He pulled out a chair for her, and she felt almost giddy as she took a seat. It was all perfect. It felt like they should be in a movie.
They each ordered a glass of red wine. Once again, he clinked his glass against hers.
“Cheers to us,” he murmured.
She couldn’t help smiling.
She read the menu over and over. Everything looked so good. Eventually she decided on tagliatelle with wild mushrooms. No puffballs, though.
The waiter returned, and Blaine ordered short ribs, as well as the antipasti board.
“I want you to have lots of energy for tonight,” he said once they were alone again. He took her hand and slid his fingers up her wrist, gently brushing her skin.
How could he make her feel so much with so little?
No wonder she’d struggled to get over him, when every touch was so meaningful. He sought explanations for everything, enjoyed unraveling the mysteries of how the world worked, but this thing between them seemed beyond explanation.
A memory suddenly came to her. She’d made herself pasta with a mushroom cream sauce for dinner, maybe a month after he’d left—soon after she’d realized she wasn’t pregnant with his baby. After a week of eating junk, she’d decided she needed to eat proper food.
And she remembered listlessly twirling her fork in the linguine or spaghetti or whatever it was, barely able to consume the nice dinner she’d cooked for herself.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his finger sliding farther up her arm.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
For tonight, they were together, and she would live in the moment.
…
Cassie placed some cured meat on a slice of bread. There were four types of meat on the platter, but she hadn’t paid attention when the waiter explained what they were, too distracted by the man in front of her. Although she’d always preferred to draw and paint nature, she was filled with the sudden urge to capture Blaine’s face with charcoal. A quick sketch of how impossibly handsome he was.
Their date was wonderful. They talked, they laughed. The pasta was delicious, as were his short ribs. But the best part of the meal was the flourless chocolate cake that he insisted they order for dessert. Honestly, it was the most amazing thing she’d ever tasted. She groaned and closed her eyes in ecstasy as she put the first bite in her mouth.
“I take it you like it,” Blaine said, slicing the small cake down the middle. “This is to ensure you don’t eat more than your share.”
“Come on,” she said. “Please?”
“Maybe for you. But I don’t usually like it when other people eat my chocolate. When I was young, I thought liking chocolate was a guy thing, like beer and wings. My father and I loved chocolate, but my mom never had much of a sweet tooth.” He looked down. “Hey!”
She’d snuck the plate to her side of the table. “Finders keepers.”
“Don’t you dare.” He grabbed the plate back and took a big bite.
She watched his Adam’s apple as he chewed. She could be mesmerized by him doing the simplest things.
He picked up a forkful of cake from her half.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she said.
But before she could say anything more, he held the fork up to her lips. She wished he could feed her with his fingers, but this was probably as far as they ought to go in public. She took the bite he offered and chewed slowly. He watched her mouth.
A lock of hair flopped over his forehead, and she reached out to push it back. Any excuse to touch him. Under the table, she slid her other hand up the inside of his knee, and she could tell he was struggling for composure.
She imagined him sliding his hand all the way up her leg, dipping his finger inside her. Pulling off her clothes and tossing her, naked, onto the bed, while his blue eyes pierced her. Jerking her arm to the side and tying it to the bedpost.
Seducing His True Love (Small Town Temptations) Page 7