Page 30 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

Ricki folded her arms across her chest. “Do you know me?”

“No.”

“Am I in danger?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the ground. “No.”

“Then why the drama?” She deepened her voice, imitating him.“‘Go! Now!’”

“It was an overreaction.”

“‘Get out of Harlem while you still can’ isn’t an overreaction. It’s a warning. A threat. Did my father thug you into doing this? To scare me into leaving town?”

He raised a brow, interested. “Who’s your dad? He sounds menacing.”

“Richard Wilde. He owns a national chain of funeral homes.”

“Where he buries his enemies?”

“Okay, this isn’t about my dad,” she blurted out impatiently. It was maddening trying to get a direct answer out of this man.

He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “Look, I saw your portrait on the Sweet Colette flyers stapled around the neighborhood. I thought you were pretty.”

Shyly, she looked down at her shoes. “You thought I was pretty?”

“Theportrait. I thought the portrait was pretty,” he said clumsily. “I didn’t even put two and two together that it was you. The woman I saw in the garden.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I wanted to remain anonymous, so I sent my assistant to buy it. She lives nearby. I just like to support young artists.” He shrugged. “I was a young artist, once.”

“Once?” Squinting at him, Ricki took three steps closer. “How old are you?”

He took three steps back. “Twenty-eight.”

This guy’s energy was confused, like he was caught between needing to get away from Ricki and wanting to stay.

“You do know how creepy this sounds, right? You bought it anonymously… for what?”

“I wanted it,” he said with a simple shrug. “No more, no less.”

Ricki’s breathing stuttered. He moved with such easy, masculine strength—even his shrug. Leonine.

“And do you get everything you want?”

He scratched his exquisite jaw slowly. “No. That would be boring, wouldn’t it?”

Ricki’s mouth went dry, and she swallowed.

This will not do.She could not join a circus for another handsome stranger. She had a business to run!

“Well. I’m sorry for stalking you,” she said. “Have a nice life.”

Ricki walked around him, headed down toward the gate.

“Hey.”

This time, he was the one to stop her.

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