CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ford
“C’mon, Celery Ellery,” I chide as I walk out onto the makeshift dance floor. Lights are strung across the park’s concrete square, a cover band is playing on the stage to our right, and an array of booths and food is everywhere else.
“You’re telling me that you, Fordham Sharpe, dance?” Her eyes are wide, her smile lighting up her face.
This was a good decision. To get out of the inn. To experience the town and something other than work together.
She was feeling trapped. I could tell it in the look on her face, and her short fuse when talking to contractors.
But it was more than that. It’s whatever has been weighing her down. Whatever happened with Chandler? Sleeping with me? Something with her brothers and stepfather? I don’t know and she won’t volunteer it.
The woman is a closed book. I’m just having to work at it to slowly crack her open.
And tonight’s a start.
There’s fire in her eyes, much like that first night we met. A sass to her tone that’s been missing.
And God, how I want to kiss her again.
“I didn’t say I could dance well . . . but I have no problem making a fool of myself. None of these people know me. Few I’ll ever see again, so what do I care?” I grab her hand and pull her onto the dance floor. Her head falls back, and her laugh carries loudly as we move to some cheesy pop song.
We dance for what feels like hours. We laugh for what feels like the best kind of eternity. It’s like being off the property has lifted a weight off our shoulders we didn’t know we were bearing. Roles we had to play fell to the wayside.
Here at some simple county celebration, we aren’t partners or co-workers. We are friends . . . and a little bit more.
Her kiss earlier took me by surprise. No complaints by any means because the woman could kiss me any time, and in any place, and I wouldn’t complain . . . but it surprised me.
Especially after we’ve purposely kept our distance from each other over the past few days.
And painfully so on my end.
Every whiff of her perfume. Every echo of her laugh. Every sound of her sigh in frustration cemented her mark on me.
My space in the soon-to-be rooftop bar is as far from her room as possible—and it’s still not far enough.
I want her. Plain and simple.
“Cookies and cream and jamocha almond fudge?” I ask as I peer through the glass case that houses the ice cream.
When I look over, Ellery’s nose is scrunched up. “Eww. No. Mint chocolate chip and chocolate and peanut butter.”
“That’s a weird mix.”
“So is yours.”
“Okay. What about, chocolate ice cream and cookies and cream?”
“Really?”
“Really,” I say.
“No. That’s boring. Mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream.”
“Is that your final proposal?” I ask as I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her smile lights up the night as she remembers how we got here. The other final proposal I made.
“Yes. Final proposal.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Sinclair, making me forfeit one of my favorites.”
“It’s only fair that we each get something and each forfeit something.”
“True.” I nod. “Fifty-fifty.”
She throws her head back and laughs while I fish money out of my pocket to pay the cashier as the ice cream is being scooped.
“I told you this was a good combination,” Ellery says around a spoonful moments later as we stroll down the sidewalk.
“So . . . there is one thing we need to talk about,” I murmur as I motion for her to sit on a park bench. She does while we watch a group of kids see whose sparkler makes the best circle when spinning their arms.
She leans her head back on my arm resting on the back of the bench, a laugh falling from her mouth. “No talking about work when I’m tipsy.” She pushes one finger against my chest. “That’s taking advantage of me.”
There’s a whole helluva lot I’d take advantage of right now when it comes to her, and it has nothing to do with work.
“You’re the one making proposals over ice cream,” I tease and take another bite. “It needs a name.”
“What does?” she asks, but I see the recognition as soon as she says it. “I thought you wanted it to be a Sharpe Signature property?”
“I do, but it still deserves an actual name.”
“You mean you’re going to let me help name it?”
I stare at her, her brilliant blue eyes and flushed cheeks, and hold myself back from leaning forward and kissing her. “Of course, I am. Fifty-fifty, right?”
“I just . . . I mean good business sense says for you to slap the Sharpe name all over it, so I’d resigned myself to that. I didn’t expect—”
My lips find hers despite telling myself not to. It’s just a brush of connection, but it sends such a charge through me that it takes everything I have to drag myself away and leave it at that. “Fifty-fifty,” I murmur. “So start thinking of a name for it.”
The hitch in her breath is audible. I love knowing I do that to her. That she’s affected by my kiss.
It’s a fucking turn-on.
“Okay.” She nods, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as we stare at each other, goofy smiles on our faces. “Thank you. For this,” she whispers.
“It was good to get away for a bit.”
“It was.”
“But it is getting late,” I say. But neither of us move. “And it might take a while to get an Uber in this town with everybody drinking like us tonight.”
“I know, but I don’t want to go back just yet. I want to sit here on a bench with you under the stars, with the sound of laughter in the air, and the moonlight on our faces.”
“Why, Ellery Sinclair, are you a romantic?”
It doesn’t fit her. First the romance novel, now this? The woman is a mess of contradictions, none of which I’d expect to be a romantic, and I love discovering them one by one.
“A romantic?” She snorts. “You have to believe in love to believe in romance.”
“Whoa. That’s a big statement.”
She laughs and plays it off with a shrug.
Then again, who’s not cynical after ending a relationship?
“But you read romance books?”
“Those authors write some good sex.”
“I should have figured.” I bark out a laugh. “You still read them though.”
“But not the epilogues,” she says, holding up a finger to emphasize her point.
“Wait. What? Why don’t you read the epilogues?
What’s wrong with them?” Our eyes meet as her tipsy smile fades and something flashes through her eyes.
Almost as if she let that slip without thinking about it.
It’s only a split second of time, but it’s enough to see that guard of hers fall.
I know there’s pain hidden behind it. “Elle?”
The wall is refortified in an instant and is smothered behind an unapologetic smile.
“I’m joking. It’s a joke. I mean, what is romance really?
Grand gestures that are over the top so the guy can win the big-dick contest when he brags to his friends and she brags to her friends about how much he loves her?
” She waves a hand my way and then finishes the seltzer in her hand.
Clearly, Chandler wasn’t doing it right.
But I leave the thought unspoken, just as I don’t question her further on her epilogue comment. I stand and hold out a hand to her.
“Love and romance aren’t mutually exclusive. And it’s not always grand gestures.”
She rolls her eyes and pushes against my chest. “Show me a man who knows how to do that and I’ll marry him.” She laughs and jumps up, holding her hands out to me. “One more dance before we go?”
We head to the dance floor and move to the beat.
Her body against mine.
Her laughter in my ears.
Her words in my head.
She doesn’t read the epilogues.
She doesn’t believe in happily ever afters.