Heart Improvement: A Brooklyn Heights Bachelor Romance

Chapter 27 - Chelsea

“Wow.”

“What?”

I spin around, looking behind me.

“Nothing, I mean, not nothing, I mean, you look nice. Not nice, great.”

Scott is so damn cute when he’s flustered. But I think he was sincere.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

I head to the truck, but Scott walks towards the garage.

“What’s this?”

“You’ll see.”

He unlocks the garage door and rolls it up.

“I promised you a ride in the convertible.”

“Oh,” I say, remembering.

Technically I think he promised Vivien footage of us riding in the convertible, but whether he forgot to mention it, or didn’t remind her on purpose, I’m glad. We would have spent the afternoon driving up and down the driveway instead of in the hot tub. Inside the garage the car is covered with a tarp.

“Ready?” he says, and I nod. “Voila.”

He yanks the tarp off with a flourish. I get a glimpse of something powder blue and then I get whacked in the face. I stumble backwards, but, thankfully, don’t fall. But then the dust he kicked up fills my eyes.

“What? Oh, god, Chelsea, I’m sorry.”

I open my eyes, blinking heavily automatically, trying to rinse the particles out. Dust is flying everywhere. I try to hold back the tears that have started flowing. Luckily, I opted for very little makeup, since it got very hot this afternoon. Still, there is a chance I am starting to look like I have two black eyes. Great.

My vision clears and I can see Scott. He looks absolutely horrified.

“It’s okay,” I say, but then I start coughing.

I tried to look nice for tonight and now I’m a hacking…raccoon, if I had to guess. When was the last time he drove the convertible? The amount of dust is unbelievable.

He waves his hand in front of his face and shoos me out of the garage, apologizing nonstop.

I brush myself off and shake out my hair. Then I pull out my compact and repair the damage with a tissue and some powder. Fortunately, that’s all it takes. I look okay. Unfortunately, I was going for better than ‘okay’.

I was so zonked from the hot tub and the filming—I’ve realized just being around Vivien exhausts me—that after the hot tub, I took a nap. I was really hoping Scott would come and wake me up, and then we could stay in bed, but he was a no show.

I know that when we were in the water he was attracted to me. I could feel it, literally. I did not imagine or read into that. That was proof positive. Hence the hoping he would make the first move this afternoon.

But when I woke up alone, that’s when I decided I had to do something, anything. What I came up with was trying to be as sexy as possible. What my grandmother would call ‘beguiling’.

Because I’m going to lay it all on the line tonight. I’m turning on all the charm and if he still doesn’t go for it, go for me, then at least I tried. Better to have…tried to love and lost then never to have tried at all.

He comes out of the garage and only just glances at me before turning and shutting the door.

“It needs a jump, sorry,” he says. “I should of thought of that, pulled it out when you were in bed.”

The last word makes heat rush through my body.

He looks at me and shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry. I hit you and the dust…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “It will be a funny story.” To tell our grandchildren, I think. I don’t say that, of course not. “Too bad Vivien and Gary weren’t still here. That would have been some great footage.”

I reach out and squeeze his hand, then let go. Beguiling is intriguing, not easy.

“The truck is fine,” I assure him. “Let’s go.”