Page 143 of Accidental Husband
Maybe he will accept my secrets.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Juliette
Outside, it's a beautiful day—bright blue sky, big yellow sun, steel and glass and neon everywhere, temperature a million degrees.
Griff hails a cab. Helps me inside. Whispers, "I'll take it from here, baby," in my ear.
My sex clenches. God, I already need him again. "Okay."
He leads us to a matcha shop in Chinatown. Then it's lunch at a noodle house, a museum devoted to the atomic testing (way more interesting than it sounds), another tea shop (just as good as the first), then back to the strip for the Shoppes at the Grand Canal.
It's more fake, Vegas perfection.
And when he leads me to the gelato stand and points to the matcha gelato—
I know he's mocking me.
But I love it anyway.
* * *
"Why are you staring?"I swallow another bite of gelato. Mmm. Creamy milk. Rich matcha. Just enough sugar.
"Am I staring?" Griff sets his cup—one scoop of chocolate, one of coffee—on the table. He wraps his arms around me. Repositions my body so I'm facing him.
It gives me a perfect view, not that I'm looking at our surroundings. The Grand Canal Shoppes are nice. The fake canal is quaint—who doesn't like men in striped shirts singing Italian loves songs? The storefronts are cute.
But they're nothing compared to Griffin's smile.
God, that smile… It makes me warm everywhere. It really does.
A gondola glides along the canal. The operator's love songs drift into our ears.
It's fake as hell, but the intentions are real. The happy couple on the ride are here to fall in love.
And they are.
I…
I'm not going there yet.
I tell Griff tonight.
Sometime before midnight, I confess the secret I've been keeping for half a dozen years.
He might take it well. He might freak out. Either way, things change.
This might be the end of the spell.
If these are the last few hours of magic…
Well, I'm not about to spend them wallowing.
"Baby, if you keep drifting off, I'm going to have to punish you," Griff mumbles into my neck.
The mom sitting next to us scowls. She shakes her headthese kids have no mannersthen hurries her children to the line at the ice cream shop.
