40-Love - Olivia Dade Page 0,19

knew better. A reckoning would inevitably come.

But even a born pragmatist could pretend otherwise, if only for a moment.

“Tess?” Lucas was looking at her quizzically.

“Sorry.” She turned to him. Offered a smile that stretched her cheeks uncomfortably. “I haven’t been on this side of the island before. It’s really beautiful.”

He glanced up at the stairs, then back down at her. “We can go somewhere else, if you’d like. The view’s great up there, but it’s great everywhere else too. And the overlook’s not entirely private, although there’s a quieter area off to the side with a picnic table.”

Last chance to be honest.

“This spot is perfect. Thank you for bringing me here.” She took the first step, then another. No pain. Not yet, anyway. “Let’s get going. I’m starving, and I can’t wait to see what you’ve packed for lunch.”

Screw honesty. She wanted to pretend, to believe, just a little longer.

Six

“So what did you and your friend do for your birthday yesterday?” Lucas speared another piece of pork souvlaki from the plastic container on the picnic table. “You said you had the whole day planned out.”

For the past minute, Tess had been mixing the tzatziki sauce with the eggplant dip as a sort of culinary experiment, one he’d watched with amused interest. Now, even though she had her wedge of pita piled high with the mixture and halfway to her mouth, she paused.

Then she set down her concoction, wincing. “Lucas, I’m so sorry. I should have thanked you right away for the gorgeous tulips. They’re some of my favorite flowers.”

He knew. When he’d finally managed to locate Belle—sans Tess—yesterday morning, she’d told him. Then he’d visited the resort’s behind-the-scenes floral arrangement guy. A few minutes of wheedling and a discreet handover of cash later, he’d had the blooms in hand and on their way to the front desk.

Maybe the gesture had been too much. He and Tess hadn’t even kissed. Might never kiss. They’d barely touched, for that matter.

But he hadn’t wanted the day to pass without his noting it. One more year of prickly, vibrant Tess Dunn on this earth was something to celebrate, no matter what did or didn’t happen between the two of them.

“My pleasure.” He gestured toward her pita. “Try your special creation. I can wait on all the birthday details.”

She bit down and chewed, her eyes closed, her expression thoughtful.

Thank goodness for the resort restaurant that had supplied their meal, since his own kitchen contained a toaster, coffeemaker, microwave, and scratched nonstick skillet as its primary amenities. Sure, he had a refrigerator, but it was nearly empty. The apartment’s small oven probably worked too, but he owned nothing oven-safe to put inside it. Given his dearth of both food and equipment, cooking for Tess himself hadn’t been an option today.

His parents had taught him how, and he enjoyed it. He still helped with their signature pork roast, applesauce, and Janssons frestelse—a creamy potato and anchovy gratin, his favorite side dish of all time—whenever he went home. But somehow, outfitting his own apartment with cooking supplies had never occurred to him.

Buying those items would imply permanency and require an eye to his future, he supposed. And he hadn’t considered that future—hadn’t allowed himself to consider it—for a long time now.

Tess’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, and he tried not to make that image sexual. Unsuccessfully.

“Delicious,” she eventually pronounced, her lashes fluttering open again. “You should tell the chef to combine both dips for a new dish of some sort.”

He snorted at that. “I’m the tennis dude. If I tried to tell Georgios what he should cook, he’d use his cleaver to separate me from some of my favorite appendages.”

Her gaze dropped to his lap before she cleared her throat and looked away, cheeks now flushed from more than the sun.

“I meant my hands, Tess.” He shook his head mournfully. “I’m shocked they let people with such filthy imaginations become administrators at your school.”

Even as she flipped him a discreet middle finger, her lips curved in a reluctant grin.

He heaved a dramatic sigh of disapproval. “Not to mention such filthy gestures. And that’s not even considering your topless escapades and unprovoked attacks on unsuspecting men’s backs.”

“Shhhhh.” She was laughing now, low and sweet, her hand flapping in the direction of the stairs. “There’s a family coming, and they don’t need to hear about my—”

“Bouncy bits?”

One of the dip containers nearly overturned as she lurched across the table. Her fierce whisper in his ear was a taunting tease, one