Page 47 of Say It Isn't So

She licked her lips. “Are you sure? I’m as bad as banks. I charge interest.”

“Oh, yeah? What sort of interest?”

She looked ahead and laughed. “At this point, you’re going to owe me three kisses,” she said, so sure of herself.

“Oof,” I joked, “pretty bad interest rate. I don’t know if I can keep up.”

“Something tells me you can.” She winked at me. I didn’t want this to end, I wanted us to stay like this, in our little London bubble forever. Because once we left London who knew what was going to happen.

“So where are you taking me anyway? I thought you wanted me to eat and I am pretty hungry, if I’m being honest.”

I nodded. “I am, too, but you can’t come to London and not have fish and chips. And something tells me you’ve never had that.”

She shook her head, confirming my suspicions. “And that restaurant didn’t have fish and chips?”

“No, but don’t worry, we’re almost there. This place makes it the best.”

“You know this for a fact?”

I nodded. “Every time I visit, I try a new one and this place ranks, trust me.”

* * *

“I’ll be honest, I thought you were being ridiculous about this whole fish and chips thing,” Bianca confessed between bites, “but this is the best fried food I’ve ever had.” She patted her mouth with a napkin and I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but I was jealous of that napkin. I wanted to be that napkin. “I think it’s the authentic way they serve it that makes all the difference,” she said, crumpling up her old newspaper and setting it on the tray.

I swallowed my own bite and chuckled. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the ink,” I jested.

She playfully leaned across the two-person table we were sitting at and swatted my arm. “How’d you learn about this place?”

I looked around and grinned at its worldly charm. “Last time I was here, I made friends with a local and he suggested it.”

Her water in between her hands now, she leaned forward.Don’t look down at her cleavage. Whatever you do, don’t peer down.“Thanks for sharing it with me.”Too late.I never considered myself much of a boob man, but when it came to Bianca Morelli, I was an every-body-part man.

After taking a sip, she drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe when we’re in Milan, I can take you to a place I really love.”

Neither one of us brought up Milan yet, so I was surprised when she did. We’d made no promises, but then again it made sense if we continued hanging out. It seemed like we both knew what we wanted—to be around each other—and we were going to the same places for the next few weeks anyway.

Until an image of Angelo popped into my head.

He’d have a conniption if he knew.

Shaking away the thought, I allowed my gaze to be drawn to her mouth, like a moth to a flame.

Stop staring at her lips.

But I couldn’t stop imagining what it’d be like to kiss her.

Okay, so now two things are off-limits in my head: Angelo and her full lips. More specifically the way they could—

My thoughts were interrupted when Bianca’s foot made contact with my leg, the side of it moving up my shin. “Bianca,” I drew out her name through gritted teeth.

She leaned forward and parted her lips slightly before breathing, “Knox.” She said it in a soft, deep, throaty voice, like a cat’s purr, like she did in my hotel room and I had to clench my hand into a fist to try to control my body’s reaction to that sound.

What I wanted to do was get up, walk over there, pull her into my arms, and kiss her breathless. Kiss her until we’d both forgotten we were in public.

But then another should-be-off-limits topic popped into my head—that stupid conversation with Rina.

She wasn’t even here and she was ruining this moment.

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