“Hello,” Conall breathed.
She blinked.
Was it the first time she had blinked since she first spotted him? Conall wasn’t sure.
“Hello,” she answered shyly.
Conall would have paid his entire sizable fortune to hear her voice, even for just that one word.
He considered standing politely while she sat, but something about the tension in her beautiful body, a slight shiver to her frame, suggested that staying seated was less likely to frighten her off.
“Will you join me?” he asked quietly.
She circled the chair, glancing at it suspiciously, then perched on it with her feet beneath her, cross-legged.
The waiter offered her the napkin from her setting, and she spread it out in her own lap like a royal garment as he filled her water glass.
“I’ve never eaten in the restaurant,” she confessed to Conall with a smile that crinkled her entire face as the waiter vanished.
It was a smile like the sun, and Conall felt the corners of his mouth turn up irresistibly. “I’m Conall,” he said, and he
offered his hand across the table.
The smile, and her entire body, froze again.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” she said frankly, looking him square in the eyes. He could see the conflict there; desire and fear and confusion.
Conall recalled his hand carefully. “You don’t have to be,” he assured her.
He stuffed his elk’s protest down resolutely and picked up his water.
It was going to be an interesting dinner.
Chapter 15
Gizelle had never seen anyone as gorgeous and grim as her mate before.
Her mate.
Her gazelle gave a happy little caper.
He looked like longing and sadness and loss. Making him smile, even briefly, was a moment of triumph.
But then he wanted to shake her hand, like people sometimes did, and Gizelle wanted his touch so badly that she knew she would come undone if she got it.
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” she confessed.
The shape of his mouth remained on his face like a mask but all the smile in his eyes vanished. “You don’t have to be,” he said, pulling his hand back so gently that it wasn’t frightening.
“I’m Gizelle,” she said, smoothing the edge of the tablecloth.
“I’m an Irish elk,” Conall replied.
Gizelle blinked. “I’m a gazelle,” she replied. She had been expecting his name, but perhaps he was aware that she already knew it.
He was looking at her with a confused expression, staring at her mouth.
Had she forgotten to look at him, or covered her face with her hair? Gizelle put a hand to her face to check and remembered that Lydia had put her hair back in a braid, which was why the breeze felt so prying.