CHAPTER NINETEEN – SYLVIE
God.
His ex was a terrible person.
But then again, I wasn’t exactly much nicer. The first thing I’d said to him when we met each other outside the café was about how I wasn’t surprised he was single.
Ouch.
“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment.
“Why? You didn’t do that to me. The worst you’ve done is hold me accountable for my childhood actions and make a badly timed joke about me not being married.”
Ouch. He remembered it. “Oh, okay. So, we’re even.”
“Not really.”
“Thomas!” I kicked my leg out towards him, although we weren’t close enough for me to make any contact with him.
He laughed, leaning forwards with his eyes twinkling with gentle amusement. “Given how many times I’ve saved your arse in the past week and a half, we’ll never be even.”
“Anyone would think you have a hero complex.”
“No, only a knight in shining armour one.” The playfulness in his gaze made my stomach flip.
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
“No. One is just a hero. The other gets a suit of armour, and that’s infinitely cooler.”
I nodded slowly. “I can’t say I wouldn’t be amused by you wearing a suit of armour. Watching you get out of it would be even funnier.”
“I wish I could say I’d never done that.”
“You’ve worn a suit of armour?”
Thomas sighed. “I was fourteen, an idiot, and my cousin dared me to.”
“That sounds like a story I need to know.”
“Only if there’s one equally embarrassing you can tell me.”
“You wish,” I scoffed. “I was an annoying goody-two-shoes when I was younger, as you well know. My cousins were brats, though, and I knew not to listen to them. Unlike Hazel.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Does she have any embarrassing stories?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to wait for the wedding for them. I’m not getting tricked into spilling my secrets here.”
He laughed. “Then I’m not telling you anything about my jaunt in the suit of armour.”
“Rude,” I muttered, wrapping my arms around myself and turning my attention to the fire. “Have you really never spoken to your ex again?”
“Nope. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. After a couple of weeks, I tried to hunt her down, but she wouldn’t answer her door, and there was only so many times I could go there before I risked getting reported for harassment.”
“Huh. Persistence must be a longstanding personality trait of yours.”
He met my gaze, fighting a smile. “Something like that.”
“Did you ever get closure? You were together for so long.”
“I don’t know if closure is the right word.
” He bent his knees and rested his arms on them, gazing over at me.
“Acceptance is probably the closest thing to it. Neither her friends nor her family would tell me anything beyond the fact that she didn’t want to marry me, no matter how many times I asked them, so I had no choice.
In a way, just accepting that I’d never know made it a lot easier than giving in to the theories that were swirling around in my head. ”
“That makes it sound terribly easy.”
“I suppose so, but I also thought that what she did was a really fucking shitty thing to do,” he continued, his voice just as soft as it was a moment ago.
“I was losing my dad, I was under immense pressure, and she wasn’t even a good enough person to give me the reason why she couldn’t be with me anymore.
Strangely enough, accepting that she was a terrible person made me feel a lot better. ”
“And now you’ve sworn off love forever, right?”
“I wouldn’t say I’ve sworn off it. I’m not looking for it, but I wouldn’t be mad if it found me.” He glanced up, and there was a little sparkle when his eyes met mine. “If I was a romantic kinda guy, I’d think us reconnecting was fate.”
“I didn’t know we were telling horror stories,” I muttered.
“You wound me, Sylvie.”
I pressed the tip of my nail to my scar on my eyebrow. “An eye for an eye and all that.”
“I thought you were over that.”
“I’m a woman. I’m never over anything. More fool you for believing me.”
“Just when I think we’re getting somewhere, you go and crush my hopes and dreams again.”
“I have to. If you keep saying nonsense like ‘fate’ and ‘hopes and dreams,’ what choice do I have but to destroy those fantasies?”
Thomas’ lips pulled up to one side in the tiniest of smiles, and he stood up, chucking his blanket on the sofa behind him. “Come on.”
“For what?”
He held his hands out for me. “Soup. Heath’s soup is the best, and Mum said there’s some left in the slow cooker.”
“Okay, but who’s Heath?” I grabbed his hands so he could haul me up to my feet, and I quickly pulled my hands out of his much bigger, much warmer ones.
He shot me an amused glance before motioning for me to follow him out of the room. “Oh. I guess he’s… the butler-slash-cook? I’m not sure how else to describe him. He’s a part of the furniture, really.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Huh.”
“Huh? What’s huh?” His words were punctuated by the creaking of the kitchen door as he pushed it open.
“I don’t know. I guess when you say things like that and I’m in your big fancy house, it reminds me that you really are a fully-fledged, blue-blooded member of the aristocracy. I forget that when you’re arguing with me like a twelve-year-old.”
“In the interest of being that fully-fledged, blue-blooded member of the aristocracy, I won’t argue with you right now.”
“That’s just because you’re hungry.”
“Stop telling everyone my secrets.”
“There’s nobody here but us,” I pointed out.
Thomas pointed towards a round device by the sink. “Alexa is listening. I don’t need her knowing my secrets.”
“Well, in that case…”
“Stop it.”
With a soft laugh, I cast my gaze around the kitchen.
It was surprisingly normal sized for a property of this size.
What was I expecting? A giant commercial one?
Yes. Yes, I was.
Both the upper and lower cabinets were cream, and the countertops were a gorgeous oak wood that made the room feel bright, even though it was horrifically dark outside.
Light green tiles covered the walls between the two sets of counters, and I hovered awkwardly at the island as Thomas wandered over to a pot in the corner.
“There’s some fresh bread in the breadbin over there. Would you mind grabbing it?”
Homemade soup?
Fresh bread?
Sod going home. I was moving in.
I retrieved the bread from the breadbin and took it over to the island, then paused as I caught sight of a fully decorated tree that had to be at least nine feet tall. “That’s a very fancy Christmas tree for the kitchen.”
Thomas turned his head towards the tree and let out a big huff. “Please direct all complaints to my mother.”
“I didn’t say I was complaining.”
“That’s right; I forgot you’re endlessly fascinated with Christmas lights, and Lord knows that tree has enough of them.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“What is?”
“The ‘endlessly fascinated’ part. I’m far more interested in things like, I don’t know.” I paused. “Cheese.”
“Huh.” He put the lid back on the slow cooker. “I did once see a snippet of old advice that said you may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese. It was something from the nineteenth century, I believe.”
“Unbelievable.”
“What is?”
“The fact that that advice is two hundred years old and men still think women are complicated.” I made a show of rolling my eyes. “That’s just proof of how long you haven’t been listening to us.”
“So, if I show you a piece of cheese, you’ll be fascinated?”
“Depends on the cheese, honestly. Cheddar is a bit dicey since it’s pretty basic, but if you pull out a bit of Brie, you might just tickle my fancy.”
“Then you should be glad you’re sitting down for this,” he said, opening the fridge. He reached onto the top shelf and pulled something down, slowly turning to reveal a pre-prepared cheese board with at least eight different cheeses on it. “How’s that?”
I cast my gaze over what had to be the fanciest collection of cheese I’d ever seen in my life. “Yeah, honestly, I’m pretty fascinated by that right now. What’s that one?”
“I think it has cranberries in it. Mum likes it.”
“I don’t know how I feel about fruit in my cheese.”
“In my opinion, you’re better off not knowing. It’s gross.” He put the board back in the fridge and swapped it for a bottle of wine.
I pointed at it. “No. Put that back.”
“Why? We’re eating, so why not have a glass?”
“Because absolutely nothing good happens when I drink wine around you.”
Thomas nudged the door shut and smirked. “That depends on your definition of the word ‘good.’ Personally, I enjoyed it the last time you got drunk and kissed me.”
“I think you’re remembering that night wrong. I definitely did not kiss you.”
“Oh, come on, Sylvie.” He put the bottle down on the island and pulled two glasses from a rack. “Either nothing good happens when you drink around me, or you didn’t kiss me. You can’t have it both ways.”
I parted my lips to argue, but I swiftly closed my mouth again.
He was right.
I couldn’t have it both ways.
Bloody hell.
I hated it when he was right.
“On second thought, I’ll take the alcohol.”
“Fine.” He popped the cork out with ease and started pouring. “But I’ve got my eye on you in case you try anything with me.”
“I’m not going to try anything with you! I didn’t even try anything then,” I argued, watching as he moved to get bowls for the soup. “It was an accident, and you know it.”
“I don’t know it. For all I know, you were aiming for my lips.”
“You turned your head at the last minute, you ratbastard.”
“Are you sure? You were quite merry that day. Maybe your memory is impaired,” he said breezily, filling the bowls. “I don’t remember turning my head.”
“I should have just walked home,” I muttered, reaching for my glass and taking a big gulp of the wine.
“Careful,” he said, putting a bowl in front of me. “Drink it too quickly, and who knows where your lips will accidentally land.”
“I’m extremely grateful for your hospitality tonight, but don’t think I won’t beat you with the fire poker, Thomas.”
“Thank God you used my name. If you were going to be cocky and call me Your Grace, I might have gotten a bit turned on.”
“Note to self: stoke the fire before beating him,” I muttered, reaching for a piece of bread so I could rip it into two.
“Kinky,” Thomas said, sipping his wine. He peered at me over the rim of the glass, and the playful sparkle in his eyes did all kinds of things to me.
Tummy-flipping, heart-pounding, vagina-clenching things.
None-of-my-bloody-business kind of things.
“Just shut up and eat,” I grumbled, shifting uncomfortably on the stool.
There was something about sitting here with him in his kitchen, eating hot soup and drinking cold wine while we tossed barbs back and forth.
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that ‘something’ quite was, but it was far more comfortable than I wanted it to be. Especially since my heart was quite unsettled by this closeness between us.
And just like the snowstorm, there was no end in sight to these growing feelings of mine.
The sooner this night was over, the better.