My Best Friend's Dad - Flora Ferrari Page 0,26

I don’t like one fucking bit.

“Sadie, come and sit in the garden with me,” I say.

“In this weather?”

“I have a heated enclosed porch at the rear of the house.”

She shoots me a look, sassiness shining through.

A chance, her look reads, we have a chance.

“Okay, Saul,” she whispers. “But even with that heated porch, let me go and put a jacket on first.”

You’d look sexy wrapped in a thousand layers anyway, I want to snarl, but she’s already spun and headed for the door.

Chapter Thirteen

Sadie

The heat comes up through my bare feet, infusing my shins and then my thighs, warming my whole body as we stare out into the garden. The glass of the enclosure is clear and shiny, the heat within causing beads of condensation to slide, but where the glass is so clear, it looks like they’re suspended in midair.

Saul sits in the chair beside me, close enough that we could fall back into our irrepressible lust if we wanted to.

But what if Fiona wakes up?

This is such a mess.

We sit in silence for a time, simply watching the night, the stars insanely bright this far away from the city, a whole pantheon of them twinkling down.

“Why weren’t you married to Fiona’s mom?” I ask when my cocoa has become cool enough to sip.

I can sense the tension running through him, as though we are two halves of the same soul, split right down the middle. I can’t help but think of his words, his claim-me declaration, and I want it. The desire burning like a birthing star, ready to blaze for countless eons.

I want it.

Even if I know I shouldn’t.

“Because if it wasn’t for Fiona, being with her would’ve been a mistake,” he growls. “We never loved each other. Fiona was an accident—not a mistake, a beautiful accident. And after that, I tried to do the right thing. I tried to make it work. But she was a wild spirit …”

“You make her sound so adventurous,” I murmur, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

He reaches across and takes my hand, the contact immediately reigniting the racetrack closeness. I shiver and suddenly the porch is twice as warm, sultriness infusing every inch of me.

“No,” he says. “Not like that. Wild in the sense that she drank too much, partied too much. She wasn’t interested in domestic life. She wasn’t interested in being a mother or having a family. The day she left to join that hippy commune, whatever the fuck you want to call it—the day she left, and it’s shameful of me to say this …”

“What, Saul?” I urge.

He sighs and looks me straight in the eye with such intensity. “The day she left was one of the happiest of my life,” he whispers. “Because it meant I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I always wondered if there might be a woman out there who could make me feel what you make me feel, Sadie. I didn’t really believe it, though. But now, I do. Now I know. I haven’t been with a woman since Sadie’s mother.”

“What?” I gasp, the shock like a punch to the gut. “Seriously? But didn’t you guys break up when Fiona was like three?”

“Yes,” he says, looking at me steadily.

“So you’ve been abstinent for almost two decades?”

“Yes,” he says again, with that same unflinching steadiness.

“But why?”

His smirk makes my insides do funny things, my womb going tight as though gathering energy. My grip tightens on his, our hands linked on as though if we hold on tightly enough, we never have to let go.

“Because I was waiting for you, Sparkplug,” he growls.

“But … Jeez, Saul, do you have any idea how incredibly freaking hot you are?”

He shrugs. “I don’t think a man should think of himself in those terms,” he says. “All these pretty boys in your generation, spending hours and hours studying their physiques in the mirror at the gym, buying fucking hair product and all that shit … No, Sadie, I don’t think of myself as hot.”

“Fine,” I allow, a flaring of agreement sparking within me. He’s so different from the douches my age. “But you have to admit that you could’ve had any number of insanely attractive women over the years.”

“I could have, yes, but the only insanely attractive woman I’m aware of is sitting right here.”

I glance back at the house, at the darkened hallway. Even if I know Fiona is deep in a drunken slumber – and even if I know first-hand that waking her