way I’ve always wanted to be if I weren’t so gun-shy when it comes to relationships.
“I love them so much,” I say as I kiss his cheek, leaving a lipstick mark behind. “Love, love, love.”
“I’m so glad,” he says as he sets me back on my feet. “I was looking for a necklace, but they didn’t have any that were just right. I’m a picky bastard when it comes to jewelry.”
A part of me wants to stress about how many women he’s bought jewelry for before me, but I ignore that voice. I don’t have to be jealous of the women from his past. Because I’m his present, and maybe his future.
I reach up to cup his face and sigh. “This is going to make it much harder to relish crushing you beneath my high-heeled Mary Janes in round two.”
“Yeah, about that,” he says, and then his mouth keeps moving and he says things that are so wonderfully generous and sweet that for a moment I’m struck full force by an insane thought—He loves me. Like, really loves me—but thankfully I realize how crazy that is before I say something stupid.
He just isn’t as serious about cooking or this competition as I am.
Or…something.
Or maybe his competitive streak is taking a day off.
Whatever it is, I hurry to assure him, “No way! Stop it. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to drop out.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” he says. “And I truly don’t mind, either way. It’s your call. I just wanted you to know the offer was on the table, if you think it might help you win.” He clears his throat and looks around, before leaning in to add in a faux confidential voice of his own, “I’m pretty keen to date the next Mrs. Sweets. It’s a status thing. Make my friends wickedly jealous.”
I grin and tease, “You’ll still get to date her. You’ll just have to get beaten by her first.” I take his hand. “Come on. No dropping out. We’re in this to the end. Or until my ice cream melts into a puddle and I’m disqualified.”
He groans as we start toward the tent, hand in hand. “Fucking hot as balls out here. I don’t know what they expect us to do in this weather. Hard to achieve culinary brilliance with the heat and the wind blowing sand into everything and tourists tracking hypodermic needles into the tent.” He wrinkles his nose at the beach. “I actually tried to walk across the sand the first time I was here. Won’t make that mistake again. It’s a bloody hazardous waste dump out there.”
I laugh. “Oh, but it’s so much better than it used to be. You have no idea. It used to be super dirty. Scary, too.”
As we stroll, I regale him with stories of the creepy Coney Island freak show my dad took my brother and me to when I was seven. “Harrison had to lead me through it like a blind person,” I add, “because I was too terrified to open my eyes.”
“Good brother,” West observes. “I’d like to meet him. Since you’ve already completely seduced my sister, I figure I should start getting on your brother’s good side sometime soon.”
I nod and squeeze his hand a little tighter. “You should. It’ll be easy. He’ll like you.” I grin. “So, Abby likes me, huh?”
“Love at first sight,” he says. “You’d better watch out or—” He breaks off with a glare as we near the tent. “What is that wretched man up to now?”
I follow his gaze to see Hawley in a yellow polo shirt crouched beneath one of the cook stations, taking the bottom off one of the ice-cream makers with a screwdriver.
Before I can warn West that we should go to one of the organizers instead of calling out another contestant for potential foul play, West is jogging across the wooden pier and into the tent, clearly ready to rumble.
24
West
I can count the times I’ve hit a man on one hand.
On two fingers, in fact.
Once when I was on holiday in Greece and some drunk wanker thought I’d touched his girlfriend’s arse—I hadn’t—and threw the first punch.
I threw the next, he stumbled over on the sand and stayed there, and that was that.
The second time was at a bachelor party. The bachelor, a poorly chosen friend from my investment banking days, got handsy with the stripper and punched me when I tried to intervene. I gave him a black eye that ruined the wedding