without me there and had emerged from it again to find me… Well.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to see me so up close and personal when you came back out of that cabinet, huh?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t. But I’m not complaining. Still, if you wanted to sit in my lap, there are easier ways to go about it.”
I laughed again, a bit more naturally this time, and his hands went suddenly to my waist, resting gently against me as if they were asking permission for something. He didn’t move any further, though, and we just stared at each other for several moments, caught in one of those spaces where we couldn’t look away from each other but weren’t really ready or willing to make any move, our breath catching in our throats, our gazes moving from eyes to lips to eyes again.
Then I rolled off of him, moving so suddenly that he didn’t have a chance to do anything about it, and came to a sitting position on the floor next to where he was lying.
“So, uh, you want me to crawl in there and find whatever it is you’re looking for?” I asked hoarsely.
“No need,” he said, sounding just as choked. He wriggled into a sitting position and held up what looked to be nothing more than a large casserole dish. “I found what I needed.”
We shared another long look, this one even more intense with the knowledge of what could happen between us, and then we both pulled away—knowing, I thought, that it wasn’t a good idea to start something with someone we would probably never see again.
I got to my feet and told myself very firmly that we were going to move forward, cook like normal people, and forget that the almost-kiss had ever happened.
“So, what are we making?”
“Moussaka,” he said immediately. “One of my favorite dishes.”
“Aha. And what exactly is it?” I put out a hand to help him to his feet, thinking that it was a generally friendly thing to do, and was gratified when he took my hand and pulled himself up without any further fanfare.
“Greek comfort food,” he said with relish. “Sort of like Italian lasagna. But without the pasta. We use eggplant instead.”
Well, that sounded absolutely delightful.
“And I’m assuming we’ll find a way to add olives to it,” I joked, turning to the counter of the kitchen and seeing not only a wide expanse of marble but also large picture windows lined with orchids and a view of the estate outside.
He reached around in front of me and put the dish on the counter. “We will indeed,” he said with a grin. “As well as using them as garnishes. And using olive oil to sauté the vegetables. We do, after all, live in the middle of an olive grove.”
I didn’t miss the ‘we,’ there—but I also didn’t correct him. Because that thing where I felt like I’d somehow gotten shipwrecked only to find myself in a place that felt like home? Yeah, that feeling was getting a whole lot bigger.
And nearly kissing him was making me feel like I wasn’t the only one thinking about it.
Chapter 10
Nikos
It took us almost no time to begin working together like a well-practiced team, and though I tried not to think too much about how natural the whole thing felt, I also decided right away that I’d take full advantage of it.
I hadn’t had anyone in my kitchen in five years. And even then, my ex-wife hadn’t liked to cook with me. In fact, she’d been directly opposed to the idea. I’d never really asked why, because it hadn’t seemed that important at the time. Now, though, as I looked through the stack of ingredients on the counter and tried to figure out what tasks I could do and what I should assign to Trish, I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it.
I’d never even considered how fun it might be to cook with my ex. Why not?
Perhaps, that sage voice in my head answered, it’s because it wouldn’t have been fun to cook with her.
Well. The voice was correct on that one. My wife hadn’t been much of a fun-loving person, and she certainly hadn’t been one for jokes. We’d gotten married too young, before we knew much about the world or our places in it, and it had led to a situation where we became people who… didn’t match as well as we might have done.
When she left, I’d