Page 1 of Where We Bloom

Prologue

BILLIE

Last Autumn

Ilike him, this handsomestrangerwho approached me at my bookstore right before closing. He asked if he could take me to dinner, and honestly, I wasn’t sure. I mean, he’s hot as hell at well over six feet tall, with dark hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, and it looks like he has muscles for days beneath his white button-down shirt and black slacks.

He’s sexy.

And did I mention his glasses? Yeah, he has the nerve to wear black-rimmed glasses that might have made my vagina salivate.

But he’s … broody.

I’m not a broody person. And yes, I read enough romance novels to know that the grumpy-sunshinecombination can be hot, but that’s fiction. In real life? I’ve never been attracted to the grump. And this guy hasintensewritten all over him.

Despite that, I said yes, and two hours later, here we are, finishing dinner at Ciao, my favorite restaurant in Bitterroot Valley, with the handsome stranger sitting across from me. We shared the appetizer of Italian nachos, ahugeentrée of pasta, and tiramisu for dessert. I’m not afraid to eat in front of a man. Yes, I’m a curvy girl, and I know how to dress my body, and I’m not ashamed of it.

I like to eat.

But the portions here are so large that I suggested we share, and I think it was the right call.

The best part of this dinner, though, has been the conversation. This guy—I didn’t get his name—is intelligent, and helistens.

Which, in my limited dating experience, seems rare.

“I might be in a food coma,” I admit as I sit back and sip the last of my after-dinner coffee, watching him. “That was delicious.”

“Everything about this evening has been delicious,” he replies, holding my gaze through those sexy-as-fuck glasses. I feel the warmth from his words spread through me.

He may be broody, but he’s charming. And he’s hardly taken his eyes off me all through dinner.

“May I be blunt?” he asks, his light accent coming through. I don’t know where he’s from in Europe, but I know he’s not American.

“Of course, please do.”

“I’d like you to come back to my suite with me. Stay the night with me.”

The hand lifting my water glass to my lips pauses halfway as I stare at him, and then I slowly lower it to the table.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Why do I feel like you’re a man who usually gets what he wants?”

His green gaze holds mine as he waits quietly, his finger tapping the side of his wineglass, watching me as I decide what to do. He’s sexy, there’s no doubt about it. He held my hand on the way here from my shop, and it made my whole arm tingle.

I’m not an impulsive person. I certainly don’t have sex with someone on a first date.

But I like him. And a chance to have sex with a man like this one may never present itself again.

And did I mention that he’s sexy?

“Where are you staying?” I watch his lips twitch, and his face relaxes as if he were worried I’d say no.

“At the ski resort.”

I nod slowly, take one last sip of my water, and ignore the butterflies currently doing the Macarena in my stomach.

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