All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,59

brain about what happened after and they’d been niggling ever since. And Jess with her double-dating quips had added to them.

Which was all weighing on his mind as he sat waiting for Vivian who was—he checked his watch—fifteen minutes late.

She, Robbie and Mackenzie had a scheduled online staff meeting with head office half an hour after closing today. Vivian had said they’d be done by seven so she’d arranged to meet him at the Graff at seven thirty but it was now just on quarter to eight. He hoped everything was okay and checked his phone inside his jacket pocket. He noticed a text from her eight minutes ago informing him the meeting had run over but that she was on her way.

Which meant she’d be here soon and the usual anticipatory flutter in his belly kicked off.

The bartender who wasn’t familiar to Reuben, put down the beer he’d ordered five minutes ago murmuring, “Enjoy, sir,” before moving away and Reuben picked it up and took a sip before placing it back down again next to the small gift bag with a wreath on the front that was sitting on the bar top in front of him.

He’d spied the trinket inside the bag in the window of an antique shop in Bozeman this morning and it had made Reuben think of Vivian. On a complete impulse, he’d gone in and handed over his money. But the longer he sat here, the more it felt like a ticking time bomb.

No Christmas presents they’d said. Vivian had been quite adamant and Reuben had agreed. Frankly he wasn’t the greatest at choosing gifts, especially picking out something for a woman, so he’d been relived. And then he’d seen the music box and…hadn’t been able to resist.

But it was just a this made me think of you gesture—that was all. Definitely not a Christmas present. Hell, if he’d spotted it three weeks ago or a month from now he’d still have bought it and presented it to her because he thought it’d be a nice memento of her time in Marietta and…it had been just too lovely not to.

Maybe putting it in a bag with a wreath on the front and bringing it with him tonight had been a mistake, though. Maybe it was giving it more import than he’d meant? Would she read too much into it? Would she see it as a sign that his mother had been right about Reuben having feelings for her?

Because that wasn’t true. It wasn’t.

The only gift bags in the shops at the moment were Christmas ones and it was just a coincidence that today was Christmas Eve. Whatever day he’d bought it for her he’d have given it to her straight away. Hell, he’d have given it to her tonight regardless of whether they’d stayed in or gone out.

She’d know that, right?

A tapping noise broke into Reuben’s turbulent thoughts and it took a beat or two to realize it was from stilettos on marble and he turned in his stool to find Vivian walking toward him in a black dress that clung to all her curves and a pair of deep-purple, spiky-heeled, suede fuck me boots. Her blond hair hung loose around her face and over her shoulders and his loins heated and his breath cut out and his heart went thunk and he thought oh hell.

“Hey,” she said, as she got nearer, “sorry, the meeting went longer than I’d expected.”

Reuben, his nervous system fritzing out just looking at her, almost fell off his stool in his haste to stand up. His arms and legs and tongue felt numb and rubbery but he forced all of them to work as she slid her arms around his waist and went in for the kiss.

It was brief and perfectly decent given they were in a public place. “Your lips are cold,” he said absently because apparently the fritzing was continuing.

She laughed. “And I bet you have just the thing for that, right?” she teased.

Her laughter cut through the fog in his head and Reuben’s brain come back online. That hadn’t been where he was going with the cold lips thing, it had been more a statement of fact and a side effect of the fritzing but yeah…he could think of a couple of ways to warm up that mouth.

“Why don’t we try the PG version first,” he said, pressing another kiss to her temple. “Red wine?”

She smiled and said, “Sounds good,” as she slipped onto the stool next