Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
My heart was pounding. I looked all around the house, realizing I hadn’t set anything else up yet, either. I zipped around, lighting some candles, turning on the rest of the holiday decor, and putting on some music in the background.
A nervous flutter had kicked up in my chest.
I used to have people over all the time, but in recent years, it had really just been my sister.
I hadn’t done this in a while. Certainly not with a very attractive guy who I was going to be faking a relationship with. I wanted…
I wanted him to like me, if I was being honest.
I hopped in the shower, rinsed off, and put on a nice sweater and simple jeans. My cheeks were a little red in the way I hated, because I thought it made me look like a little boy who’d just come inside from playing out in the cold.
“Shit. The cakes,” I said out loud as I headed back out to the kitchen, finally sliding them into the hot oven.
I got started on the peanut butter icing, rushing as I poured powdered sugar, peanut butter, and regular butter into a bowl. I grabbed my hand mixer and turned it on high, and a huge cloud of powdered sugar shot up into the air, coating the front of my sweater in a plume of fine white.
And then I heard a knock at the door.
The back of my neck felt hot as I went to answer the door.
This was not how I’d wanted it to be when Rowen got here.
I swung open the door to see Rowen under the low glow of the Christmas lights, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a big bouquet of fresh flowers in the other. He had his camera slung around one shoulder.
My heart landed somewhere up near my throat.
“You brought flowers?” I said.
“All for you, boyfriend,” he said, smiling as he leaned forward, giving the bouquet a sniff. “Some dahlias, some amaranth flowers, and a few red roses.”
I stepped aside so he could come in. I felt heat creeping up to my cheeks even more now.
Rowen looked damn good.
Classy and sexy, like some sort of big city model. He was wearing a leather jacket that he shrugged off as he came inside, revealing a fitted, creamy-white cashmere sweater underneath.
He looked like a million bucks.
A million bucks in my shoddy old house. Quite the contrast.
I took the flowers and placed them on the little dining room table, marveling at their beauty. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten flowers before. They’re so beautiful.”
“You’ve got a little something on your shirt,” he told me.
“Shit. I forgot,” I said, looking down at the sugar. “Let me go change. Make yourself at home.”
I rushed off to swap to a different long-sleeve shirt. When I came back to the kitchen I found Rowen with his head poking into a cabinet, with about six other cabinets thrown open around the kitchen.
“I’m starting to think you have a personal war against cups,” Rowen said. “You have about twenty different bowls, enough plates to feed an army, and like, ten water bottles, but…”
I reached over to another cabinet to open it, and showed him the inside. “I have two cups.”
He gave me a look like I was insane. “You have only two cups, and one of them has Lucy from I Love Lucy on it and the other is a big, empty jar?”
I bit back a smile. “I know I said to make yourself at home, but now I’m kind of regretting that.”
“Two cups?” he repeated.
“Listen,” I told him, holding up my hands in defense. “The bowls I got as a gift from my mom. The plates were passed down from my Grandma when she died. The water bottles I got on my own, because I need them for the gym.”
“And you just haven’t gotten around to cups yet?”
“Exactly,” I said. “I tried to tell you, this house is a work in progress.”
…And my whole life is a work in progress, but that’s a different story.
“You are so fucking cute,” Rowen said, shaking his head as he grabbed my two mismatched glasses.
A new bloom of heat moved through me.
He said it so casually, like it was nothing to him to call me cute.
“Anyway. Whiskey?” he asked.
“Yes. Please,” I said, running my hands through my hair. “Today’s been a little stressful.”
“Let me guess. You were looking at different options for cups online and the sheer stress of having more than two sent you over the edge?”
I snorted. “Caught me. Even the idea of having matching cups puts me in a tailspin, Rowen.”
“What was so stressful about your day, really?” he asked.
“Well, the inn was swamped all day. Big group of newly retired people came to stay, and they each had their own specific requirements for the rooms. Stella Murray can’t stand an east-facing window, Reggie Dunn can’t deal with scented soap…”