Page 164 of Mended Hearts

“So?”

“She was petite. Maybe five-foot-three. Prettiest curly black hair.”

“I meant, what did Pax say?”

“Oh! He kinda glared like I wasn’t supposed to come out of my room, then gave me the ‘you didn’t see anything’ eyebrow arch.”

“Like the penguins.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

He handed me his wallet and his phone—already queued to our favorite Indian restaurant—as he opened my door. I watched with a totally appropriate level of admiration hitherto unachieved, as I tracked that perfect ass as he rounded the car. That man walked sexy.

“Madagascar,” I muttered.

He beamed. “There she is.”

“Oh. Very nice.”

“Beau loves the zebra.”

“Naturally.”

One absurdly large order later, we were carrying back bags of food when one split open—aluminum, cardboard, and spiced sauce hitting the pavement in a glorious mess.

“Fuck,” I barked, scooting back as pakoras and curry rained down.

“Dammit, I’m sorry,” I muttered, squatting down to clean it up—only to be ambushed by tears.Fucking tears.What the hell?

“Leigh, are you okay?” Ollie asked gently, already kneeling beside me, gingerly setting down his own bags and rolling up his sleeves. For the first time, the sight of his beautiful forearms wasn’t enough to make me salivate because my throat was tight and my eyes were stinging, and?—

Oh my god what is wrong with me?

“Fine,” I squeaked. Liar. Then I saw the pakoras. And I wasnotfine.

“I just really wanted veggie pakoras,” I whimpered as he scooped me up.

“Baby,” he cooed, wiping my cheeks with kisses. “Do you want me to go get another order?”

“Mm-mm.” I shook my head, lip wobbling. “Stupid fucking hormones.”

He chuckled, pulling me against his chest. “If my girl wants pakoras, I’m getting her pakoras.”

“Stupid,” I mumbled into his shirt. “Wasteful.”

“You didn’t design the bags, Trouble.”

“So much food,” I complained against his firm chest. Honestly, I was surprised he could understand my petulant words where I suffocated them in his shirt. But he just laughed, dropped a kiss to my crown, tucked me into the Bentley, piled my lap with the survivors of the Great Curry Massacre, and then closed me inside. I watched in the mirror as the love of my life knelt in his ridiculously expensive pants to gather the remaining mess, dumped it into the trash, and then vanished into the restaurant for exactly twelve and a half minutes.

While I waited, sniffling pitifully, I turned on the radio. Declan J Donovan’s “More Than A Feeling” filled the car.

Ollie was… Ollie was everything… more than I ever could’ve asked for. Patient. Steady. Loving. He never made me feel like a burden—not once. Even when I unraveled in the middle of a sidewalk over dropped pakoras.

With the workload on his shoulders, he couldn’t be at every appointment, but he FaceTimed for a few minutes during ultrasounds whenever he could manage it.

The prickle of being watched pulled my attention up the street to a black sedan, where I locked eyes on a man about Ollie’s age—dark hair, scruffy, broad-shouldered. Handsome, in a verynot-Ollieway. He smiled and dipped his chin when I caught him staring, and then stepped out onto the sidewalk and loped away.

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