but a Ferrari? What’s wrong with the standard-issue Corolla?”
He glances at me as though he’s never been so offended in his life. “A Corolla?” he says bluntly, struggling and failing to keep the amused smirk off his handsome face. “Tell me, have you ever met another surgeon who’s getting around in a fucking Corolla?”
“I guess not, Your Excellence,” I say in a bullshit British accent. “Had I known that I was going to be dining with royalty, I would have broken out my diamonds.”
Thorne scoffs and leads me toward his car. “Really?” he laughs. “You have diamonds just sitting around, waiting for the off chance that you’ll be dining with royalty?”
I shrug my shoulders and allow him to open the car door for me. “Sure do,” I grin proudly. “At least, the lady who sold them to me for twenty dollars in Bali promised they were real.”
Thorne laughs and helps me into his car before leaning down and meeting my eyes through the open door. “A woman like you deserves to be showered in diamonds.”
Fuck me and that stupid blush.
All I can do is bite down on my lip as Thorne closes my door and walks around to the driver’s side. He drops down beside me, and the second his door closes with a soft thud, the outside world is blocked out, and my nerves instantly fire up again.
This is really happening. I’m on a date with Dr. Thorne Mayson.
Shit, I really need to stop calling him that. It’s Thorne, just Thorne. None of that Dr. bullshit unless we’re at work. Maybe in the bedroom. Damn, I’d love to get him into my bedroom. Sex with Thorne Mayson … holy hell. I bet he’d be the most—NO, no, no, no. I cannot go there. Don’t think those naughty thoughts, Autumn, or you’ll never make it through the night.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks as the engine rumbles to life and I feel it vibrate right through my body.
“Sex,” I blurt out before my eyes go wide. I slam my hand down over my mouth and gape at him in horror, unable to believe I just said that.
Thorne indicates and pulls out into traffic. “So, how do you want me to proceed here?” he questions, a teasing sparkle hitting his sky-blue eyes. “Tease you about it the whole night or pretend it never happened?”
I groan, hiding my face behind my hands. “Pretend,” I tell him, my voice muffled by my squished and ashamed face. “Definitely pretend it never happened.”
“Okay,” he laughs, reaching up and stealing my hand away from my face before he slips his warm fingers through mine. “Teasing it is.”
I groan, but I can’t help but laugh at the situation. Sure, it was the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me, yet somehow he makes me feel so at ease.
Thorne pulls up at the best Italian restaurant in town, and I gape at him in surprise, though I don’t know what I’m so shocked about. I told him at the hospital that I liked Italian, so why wouldn’t he bring me here? It’s common sense.
Thorne hurries around and opens the door for me before offering me his hand and helping me out of his car. I’ve never been treated like such a lady in my life, and it sends a warm thrill sailing right through me. In just the first fifteen minutes of this date, he’s set the bar so high that no other man would ever be able to reach it.
Within only a matter of minutes, we’re sitting at the best table the restaurant has to offer with a bottle of wine chilling beside us. My nerves have completely gone as I realize that he’s having just as much of a good time.
We order our meal and the time instantly flies. Before I know it, I’m halfway through it and already sad that the night is half over. “So,” I say, glancing up over my wine glass. “I know this is cheesy, but how are you still single? A guy like you … you’re literally the most eligible bachelor in Nashville. You could have had any woman you wanted and she would have fallen at your feet.”
“To be honest,” he tells me. “I nearly did. I had the perfect girl, the perfect job, the perfect home. Everything was so right that I moved her into my place and the very day that I bought her a ring, I came home to find her fucking my best friend