jewelry already? I mean, I wasn’t one to say no to jewelry, but on a second date? That seemed like a lot even for a rich guy in Manhattan. I mean, if he’d gotten me jewelry, he was definitely going to be expecting something to happen at the end of this date, and I just was not ready for that.
“Um, what is this Lucas? I didn’t expect you to get me anything.” He looked at my face and started laughing.
“Oh God. I just realized what you must be thinking.” He threw his head back. “Don’t worry. It’s not a ring or anything. I’m not crazy.”
“I didn’t think it was a ring.” I laughed, though the possibility had crossed my mind. Not an engagement ring, of course, because if he’d gotten me an engagement ring on the second date, I would have left already because that would have been certifiable. No one got engaged after two dates, no matter how good the dates were.
“Just open it. Don’t be nervous, Gemma. I promise you, it’s nothing crazy.”
“Okay,” I said. I pulled off the ribbon and then unwrapped the small little box. I opened it and inside there was a red velvet box. “Oh shit. What is this?” I looked up at him.
“Open the box. Trust me.” I opened the box and inside were two perfectly-shaped heart chocolates, one milk chocolate and one dark chocolate. “Those are truffles that I got for you.” He grinned. “Flown in from Belgium.”
“No way. Wow.”
“Yep.” He looked satisfied and then smirked. “It’s a cute little chocolatier shop in Brussels. I love their chocolate, and they shipped them overnight for me. It cost a lot of money, but you deserved it.”
“Wow. Thank you.” I was taken aback. “Thank you so much. I wasn’t expecting anything like this. This is really thoughtful.”
“Well, I knew you were doing a picnic, and I figured what’s the perfect way to end a picnic, what better than with some chocolate?”
“Yeah. So, shall we try it or—”
“You don’t have to eat them now with me, if you don’t want to. You might want to take them home and enjoy both of them for yourself.”
“Yeah. But you know what? I’d like to share them with you. You got them for me, and I think this will be the perfect way to end the picnic part of our date before we go to the escape room.”
“Oh yes, the escape room,” he groaned. “I’m smart, but I don’t know if I’m smart enough to escape.”
“You know what, we’ll give it our best shot.” I pulled out the dark chocolate and took a small bite. “Mm. This is absolutely amazing.” It melted in my mouth. The taste of cocoa and vanilla and a hint of strawberry or raspberry flooded my senses. It was the most delicious chocolate I’d ever had in my life. I passed it over to him and he took a small bite. He grinned as he stared at my face and chewed.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “It really is.”
“Just like you,” he said, with a small smile. I just sat back and smiled because what did you say to that? When a man said you were amazing, you didn’t say, “No, I’m not.” You certainly didn’t say, “Wait until you get to know me better and meet my crazy Greek family.” You just took it in, smiled and acted like you were as amazing as he thought you were because, eventually, he’d get to know the truth. Eventually, he’d get to know that I was as crazy and neurotic as all the rest of the women he’d ever dated. But maybe our connection would be such that it didn’t matter. Maybe I was the sort of crazy that was just perfect for him. Though at this point I’d let him believe that my whole package was just one big bundle of amazingness.”
Chapter 13
“I can’t believe we actually escaped, that was amazing,” I said to Lucas feeling pretty awestruck as we exited the escape room building. “You are so brilliant.”
“Well, I have to admit that I’ve kind of done a couple of these before,” he grinned, “team-building exercises and all that with the firm.”
“You told me you weren’t going to be that good,” I laughed.
“I didn’t want to let all my cats out of the bag. You got to have some secrets, you know?”
“Well, that was a pretty big secret. You got us out of there in the fastest time ever. They said we were