few people happy with the things I’ve made.” He pulled a ball out of Ruby’s toy bag and lightly tossed it to her. When she caught it, he cheered like she’d just won the World Series. “Hanging with my family is right up there too,” he told Zara. “It’s the most important thing of all, actually.”
He was right that it wasn’t about how much money you made, or how many fans you had. It was about fulfilling your passion—and if you could make people happy while you were at it, that was an amazing bonus. A picnic with a laughing little girl and her gorgeous babysitter on a beautiful day wasn’t bad either.
As for family being the most important thing of all…
Of course Zara agreed. But if she talked about family right now, she was bound to fall apart all over again. And even though Rory had a truly great shoulder to cry on, she really didn’t want to end up a sniveling mess.
“Confucius had it right,” she said as she deliberately turned their focus from family to work. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
She listened carefully for any strange sounds, but all she could hear was the wind through the trees, the crash of the ocean waves, and Ruby batting the ball with her little hands. “What am I supposed to be hearing?”
“The sound of my heart going pitter-patter.” He laughed at her confusion. “As if it isn’t already enough that you’re beautiful and talented and sexy as hell, you’ve just quoted Confucius.” He leaned in closer. “Give me more.”
She shouldn’t be so pleased by his compliment. Nor should she offer to entertain him like a trained quote-spouting monkey. Then again, why shouldn’t she have some fun with it? After all, she was the one insisting on having fun today, rather than going anywhere deep.
“Okay, here’s one that I’ve wanted to say to you every day for the past year whenever you annoyed me. ‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.’” Though it had turned out that he was the best kind of man beneath all his swagger, she still gave him a wicked smile. “So says Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome.”
“God, that’s hot. Don’t stop.”
“Most guys would be begging me to let up already, not begging me to continue. You’re really weird. Isn’t he, Ruby?”
She rubbed her hand over Ruby’s full tummy, and the little girl closed her eyes, looking perfectly at peace. Zara felt momentarily at peace too, sitting in this beautiful park, spouting esoteric quotes. Cameron had hated it when she did that, unlike Rory, who was going gaga for it.
“How about a few more seconds of your brilliance in exchange for a hit of chocolate cake?” he suggested.
“Now you’re the one who knows me all too well.” It was easy for him to buy her cooperation as he opened the container holding the cake and presented her with a forkful.
After she’d swallowed the delicious dessert, she hit him with another quote that fit his loquacious tendencies perfectly: “‘Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in few.’”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Only you would know how to hit me right where it hurts with classic Pythagoras.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t know that one.”
“Who wouldn’t know the wisdom of the great Ionian Greek mathematician and philosopher?” he asked. “Also, there’s a really similar saying in Gaelic.”
“You know Gaelic?” Yet again, she was impressed.
“My mom is the only one of us who knows Gaelic well, although she tried really hard to teach it to us when we were kids. She did have a phrase for each of us, though. Mine was Beagán a rá agus é a rá go maith. Which translates more or less to ‘Say little, but say it well.’”
Though Zara’s already mushy heart had gone completely to goo as he spoke in the super-sexy foreign tongue, she teased him with, “Has she ever stopped saying it to you?”
“Nope.”
Ruby broke into their conversation with an excited yelp. She pointed at a falcon flying above them, clearly far more interested in the park’s wildlife than in eating—or in listening to them chatter.
“If you’ve had your fill of lunch,” Rory said, “why don’t we pick up some bikes and a kid trailer from the rental place in the park? I’ve already run it by Flynn, and he’s on