surprised smile that threatened to break down every wall she’d tried to build in the last few hours. He cleared his throat and continued.
“Will, that man in the bar, that idiot who speaks without thinking sometimes, I told him about you, about how I met you. Will always says the wrong things at the worst times. I never thought you needed rescuing and I didn’t do any of this out of pity. I did it because I liked you and I wanted to be with you.”
Aubree processed everything he said, a little stunned. Okay, way stunned. “Did you get fired?” she asked quietly.
“What? No… Will can’t fire me.”
“He can’t? But Jenny said he was the boss.”
Matthew smiled a little. “Of her, yes. But not me. You remember I told you that my best friend was here in Chicago? That was Will. He and I both co-own Love Potion #9 together.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” For some reason that upset her too. It was another deception.
“I didn’t tell you right away because I wanted you to like me for me. Unlike Will, I like doing the work behind the bar. That will always be part of who I am, and most women think that kind of job is temporary. I love making drinks, love talking to customers. I like staying engaged in the human experience. I wanted you to see that part of me first before I showed you the business side of me.”
Aubree was silent, still processing everything he’d said. So, he was the owner of the bar, but he was afraid she would judge him if he was just a bartender? She could understand that. After all, she had wondered why he tended bar when he he’d attended Cambridge and the London School of Economics.
Matthew held out a hand to her. “Will you give me a second chance? Please?”
Aubree gazed into his eyes, seeing only honesty and a tender hunger for her. A hunger that echoed the loneliness and desire within her own heart.
“If you want me, I’m yours, Aubree. You remember that quote I put on my sign? I meant every word and I was talking about you. I love you and that’s the beginning and the end of everything.”
Aubree bit her lip hard as her eyes burned. She was so afraid to believe in magic of love anymore. She was afraid to trust her heart, yet she’d began this journey to find love. What kind of person was she if she turned her back on it now? Her friendship with the sexy Australian bartender had indeed caught fire and she wanted those flames to burn even brighter. With a trembling hand, she touched his gloved palm and he pulled her slowly into his arms, the embrace full of fire and tenderness.
“I’m afraid of getting hurt,” she whispered as he nuzzled her cheek. His soft, delighted sigh filled her heart with a blinding tightness and cottony warmth.
“Me too,” he said. “But it’s worth the risk. I feel deep inside that you are the answer to every question I’ll ever ask. I never thought I could fall in love again this hard and fast, but I don’t regret a second of it.”
Aubree couldn’t stop the tears that followed as she clung to Matthew. “How is it possible to feel like I’ve loved you and missed you my whole life, even though we’ve only just met?”
Matthew cupped her face in his hands. “Aristotle once said love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. I believe we’ve finally connected our two missing pieces.”
A hot ache burned her throat as she pulled him down to kiss her. Explosive currents danced between them when their lips met. Snow stung her cheeks in wintry kisses. Aubree didn’t want to be anywhere else in that moment. The magic she’d forgotten to believe in long ago pulsed, and soft, seductive intimacy formed between them as their mouths met over and over in slow kisses.
“You are the beginning, the end, my everything,” Matthew murmured between fervent kisses.
“And you are mine.” She meant it to the depths of her soul.
Love is friendship that has caught fire.
Epilogue
Six months later…
Warm white sand burned Aubree’s feet as she stepped out of the shallows of the pure blue waters of the Bahamas and headed toward the white canopy bed tucked beneath a thick shelter of palm trees. Matthew stood by the bed, wearing a pair of pale blue board shorts that made him far too sexy for a public