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I really like Ava, I do—but with her loitering in the doorway of Lila’s dressing room, resulting in me having to keep a respectable distance and pretend to be very interested in Lila’s potted plant, is less than ideal.
“—and the ratings are going to be through the roof,” Ava is saying. “I can feel it.”
“If Ian in a pink chef’s hat doesn’t break the viewing threshold, then I don’t know what will,” Lila chuckles as she brushes her hair, peering in the mirror to make sure there isn’t any stray flour anywhere. “Maybe Gia will get off our backs.”
“You know she just answers to the guys upstairs,” Ava points out.
Lila rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
“And how about you, stud?” Ava grins slyly. “Feeling happy about all the good publicity?”
“Well,” I snort, “I haven’t seen anyone calling me an adulterer in a while.” Lila pauses in her brushing, catching my eye in the mirror as her lips turn down in a frown. Fuck. Definitely hadn’t meant to bring that up. I avert my gaze, shrugging as if I’m not bothered. “Anyway, it’s a nice reprieve, in any case.”
“Right.” Ava nods, her eyes darting between the two of us. “Well, I’d better go make sure the camera guys are doing okay.”
I suspect she’s only leaving because of my inadvertent attempt to bring down the mood, but I can’t say I’m not grateful to finally be alone with Lila, whatever the reason. She’s still eyeing me in the mirror, and I move closer, wanting to distract her from my pathetic past, wanting to stay in the little bubble we’ve made for just a while longer.
“You know,” I tell her, toying with the knot of her apron at the back of her neck, “the apron might look ridiculous on me, but it’s very tempting when you wear it.”
Her brow arches as her lips quirk. “Is it?”
“Very,” I say, leaning in close to press my lips to her throat. “And you always smell so sweet.”
I hear her drop her brush back onto the vanity, and then her hand reaches up behind her until her fingers are teasing through my hair. “Do I?”
“Mhm. Everything about you is a temptation, Lila.” When I peek up at her reflection, I catch her lashes fluttering as I brush my lips down the column of her neck. “But this fucking apron…The things I’m thinking about you and this apron aren’t very sweet at all.”
Her smile is downright wicked. “I like that.”
“Do you?”
“Mhm.” Her eyes flutter until she meets my gaze again in the mirror. “I’ve been wanting to tempt you forever.”
“You’re definitely making up for lost time.”
“Mieux vaut tard que jamais,” she hums.
“Fuck,” I groan. How does her voice sound so much sweeter in another language? “Have I told you what that does to me?”
“I might have guessed,” she teases.
“What does it mean?”
“Better late than never,” she tells me. “More or less.” She sighs softly when she feels my smile against her throat, her voice a bit lower when she speaks again. “What are you doing after this?”
I straighten, cocking my eyebrow. “I didn’t really have plans. You?”
“I was just going home,” she says. “I live nearby.”
She says this slowly, like a suggestion, and heat courses through me. “Jack mentioned that, yeah.”
“You could walk me home,” she goes on quietly, her pretty pink tongue swiping at her lower lip, tempting me again. “If you want to.”
And it’s a suggestion that has more meaning than the obvious one, I think, one that I’ve both been obsessing about but that also leaves me slightly terrified, because what will that mean for us? What will it mean if we cross a line we can’t come back from?
But her eyes on me are full of want that I know matches mine, and her chest rises and falls at a pace that tells me she’s feeling as breathless as I am, that her heart is most likely pounding in her chest at a similar cadence to my own, and there’s only one thing I know for sure.
“Yes,” I answer quietly, coiling one silky strand of her hair around my finger and leaning in to inhale her sweet scent. “I want to.”
