“I like the way you smell, too. Fresh. Clean. Sweet. Like a wild meadow after a spring rain.” He kissed her temple warmly. Megan’s wine glass trembled in her hand. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“I’ll stay in these clothes if you let your hair down. What?” He countered with wide-eyed innocence when she looked at him with pointed suspicion. “It’ll make me feel less conspicuous, like I’m not just the peasant who won the lottery and got the privilege of dining with the princess. You wouldn’t want to make me feel uncomfortable, would you?”
Megan gave him a look that told him she wasn’t buying it. Christian would sit down to tea with the Queen of England herself wearing holey jeans and flip-flops and never break a sweat. Still, she didn’t protest when he removed the clip from the back of her head.
He gave a lazy, smug grin as he ran his fingers through her loose hair.
“That was excellent. I have to get the recipe from you for the marinade,” Megan said a half hour later.
Christian shrugged as he leaned back in the armed dining room chair. They’d decided that it was too hot to sit outside on the terrace, although Megan had accompanied him on a few
barbecuing forays while he checked on the salmon he grilled outside. “I don’t have a recipe. I just make it up as I go along.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” she teased. But her eyes were sincere when they met his.
“Thank you, Christian. Nobody’s ever made me a congratulatory meal.”
He paused in lifting his water glass to his mouth. “Nobody?”
Her laugh sounded embarrassed. “Not that I can recall.”
Christian watched her for a few seconds, not particularly relishing the idea of no one ever doing anything special for this unique woman. He thought of something and bound up from his chair. “I almost forgot. Your special meal isn’t finished yet. Why don’t you go into the living room and I’ll bring it to you there.”
He ignored her when she said that she wanted to help him clean up and pushed her toward the living room. Megan was examining his black baby grand when Christian entered a few minutes later with a tray. “You play all of these instruments, Christian?”
“Yes, but highly inexpertly.”
Megan smiled. “When you have a friend with Seth’s talent almost everything must seem inexpert by comparison.”
“Exactly, but don’t tell Seth I said so. His head is already as big as the state of California. Do you play an instrument?”
Megan glanced up in surprise when she realized that he’d set down the tray on the coffee table and was standing right behind her.
“No. Art lessons were my parents’ limit. My mother still considers art to be a hobby, not a career,” she said wryly. She placed one finger on a key, the struck note striking him as wistful somehow. “I always wished I could play the piano, though.”
“You can still learn. My mom taught me. She was a real taskmaster, too.” He reached down and played the opening notes to one of the Brandenburg concertos.
“One of your favorites?” he asked with a smile.
Megan shook her head in amazement.
“Inexpert, indeed. You noticed I like Bach, too, huh?” She asked, shaking her head.
“Only because it’s one of my favorites, too,” he said before he seamlessly segued to a boisterous portion of Jerry Lee Lewis’s Great Balls of Fire. He smiled wider, charmed by the sound of her laughter. He straightened and herded her toward the seating area. “Enough showing off. You’ve got cake you need to get busy and eat, and the coffee is getting cold.”
Her grin slackened when she saw the two succulent pieces of cake on the tray. “You made that?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I had that bakery on Randolph deliver it. It’s chocolate raspberry. I hope you like chocolate.”
“Now you’ve got to be kidding.”
She grabbed a plate, sat down and tucked into her cake with no further ado. He sat down and watched her, entranced. When she was almost finished, she glanced over at him in surprise as she sucked a dab of icing from her finger.
“Aren’t you going to eat yours?”
“I was enjoying the show too much.”