Donovan chugged the rest of his water and winked. “Plus, I have zero worries about us in bed together. I already know we’re a good match.”

“How?”

“Eye contact. You give incredible eye contact.”

I laughed. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“You look at me with an intensity. It mimics the way I feel inside when I look at you. Chemistry is all about eye contact.”

Our gazes caught, and my heart sped up. I guess he had a point. We’d had that spark from the very first moment we met.

Bev came back in, and Donovan excused himself to go talk to her by the stereo. They exchanged a few words, and she smiled as she glanced over at me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“What was that all about?” I prodded when he came back.

“Nothing.” He took one of my hands and wrapped the other around my back as the music started.

Bev was back at our side and counting again before I could interrogate him further. The second half of our lesson went better than the first. I finally started to relax and enjoy myself once I stopped caring what I might look like. To be honest, the way Donovan looked at me, I knew judging me for some missteps was the furthest thing from his mind. At one point, Bev stepped back.

“Alright. There’s about ten minutes left to our lesson. I’ve really enjoyed working with you. If you’re interested in continuing, just give me a call.”

“Thanks, Bev,” we both said.

She walked back over to the music, changed the song, and waved one last time as she walked out of the dance studio and into the lobby.

“I’m confused. Didn’t she just say there were ten minutes left?”

Donovan pulled me into his arms. Unlike the way he’d held me during the rhumba lesson, our bodies were pressed close together now.

“I asked her if we could have ten minutes of time to dance alone. Her lesson was nice, but there was too much distance between us. I want you closer.”

The instrumental introduction to John Legend’s “Slow Dance” ended, and he started to croon. My body melted into Donovan’s touch as we swayed back and forth.

“This was a very thoughtful idea. Thank you.”

“Let’s be real, my motives weren’t entirely altruistic. These lessons were also an opportunity to hold you close for the first hour of our date.”

I laughed, and Donovan spun us around, burying his nose in my neck and inhaling deeply.

“You know, you ruined a date for me because of how you smell,” he said.

I pulled my head back. “How so?”

“You smell like vanilla. A few months after you disappeared, I went out with a woman. After our date, she invited me back to her apartment for a drink. When we got there, she lit a few candles—made the entire room smell like vanilla. I had one glass of wine, told her I had an early morning meeting I’d forgotten about, and called it a night.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

Donovan shook his head and laughed. “I see you’re really broken up about ruining my date.”

“Says the man who followed me into the bathroom during one of mine.”

He groaned. “Let’s not talk about any of that. The thought of you with Blake—or any other guy, for that matter—makes me feel explosive.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I feel like punching the woman who lit candles for you.”

He smiled. “It does.”

“You know so much about my dating history, but you never really told me about yours. I can already tell you’re way too good at this dating thing to not have had a lot of girlfriends.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”

“One, in law school. We went out for about two years. Broke up when we went our separate ways after we graduated.”

“So…since then?”

“I’ve dated, but I’ve always been upfront that I’m not looking for anything serious and my job is my priority. Turns out, sometimes the best things come when you’re not looking at all.”

I bit my bottom lip. “You scare the hell out of me, Donovan.”

“Right back at ya, Red. But you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m more afraid of what I’ll be missing if we don’t give this a real shot.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”

Donovan pulled me against him again and led me around the dance floor a few times. He held me a little tighter, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with the dance. Normally, any possessiveness from a man sent me running, but not this time. I liked that Donovan felt that way about me, mostly because the feeling was mutual, and somehow it was less scary to me that way.

The song came to an end, but Donovan kept my hand in his.

“You ready for our date?”

“I thought this was our date?”

“Nah. This was just me finding a way to get your tits pushed up against my chest when we’re supposed to be going slow.”

I laughed, but stood on my tippy toes and brushed my lips with his. “You can’t fool me, Mr. Decker. You’re thoughtful and sweet and have a very romantic side.”

He looked back and forth between my eyes. “Oh yeah? Well, if that’s true, you better keep that a secret. I have a reputation of being an asshole that I need to keep intact.”

My belly did a little somersault. The way he looked at me turned my insides into warm mush. I still had the urge to flee, but I was learning that I could get past those flare-ups if I just rode it out and took things slow.

Though every minute I spent with this man made the hope inside me bloom a little bigger. I was learning to trust again, and I’d just have to hope that this time, my trust wasn’t misplaced.

CHAPTER 26

* * *

Donovan

“This place is beautiful.” Autumn laid her napkin across her lap. “Have you been here before?”

I hesitated before answering that. The lawyer in me always played chess, trying to figure out where the conversation might lead, based on a given response. In this case, if I said yes, that could lead to her asking if I’d taken a date here, and I didn’t want her not to feel special.

Autumn lifted a brow. “Earth to Donovan. Are you there?”

I nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I just got stuck in my head. I have been here before once.”

“What do you mean, stuck in your head? Is something bothering you?”

Again, I took a minute to debate how this conversation might play out, and Autumn noticed.

“Talk to me,” she said. “What’s going on?”

I decided to come clean. “I’m overthinking shit because I don’t want to screw tonight up.”

“But what are you overthinking?”

“You asked me if I’d been here before. I have. But I was trying to figure out whether if I admitted that, you might be put off because I’d been here with someone else.”

“I see. Well, you being honest with me is more important than the fact that you brought another woman here.”

I raked a hand through my hair. “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just been a long time since I was nervous on a date.”