“That’s really the truth. I always liked being here. I liked the work, the socializing. I just felt right at home from the start.”
“I understand that. I felt that way at my uncle’s place. It was hard work but it was nice.”
And so was sitting there like that, with Ad, having an excuse to look at him, to get to know the intricacies of his features, the way his eyes could actually go from aquamarine to dark turquoise with the changes in his emotions….
But letting herself be mesmerized by it all was not wise, and Kit knew it.
It just wasn’t a breeze to tear herself away.
She did it, though, standing up and taking her glass with her.
“Those cakes should be cool enough by now.”
Ad stood, too, following her back to the kitchen.
He played assistant again as she wrapped the cooled cakes in plastic and then sealed them in bags and stored them in the walk-in freezer where they would be left undisturbed by his staff.
Then Kit gathered her equipment, Ad turned off the lights, and they went out the alley door, locking it behind them.
The whole way up the stairs Kit had to fight feeling sad that her time with Ad was ending but she did that, too, reminding herself that this was a temporary, superficial relationship and not the beginning of something. Even if it did feel like the beginning of something.
“Did Kira tell you that we have fittings on the wedding clothes tomorrow afternoon?” Ad asked when they reached the landing of the side-by-side doors to the two apartments.
“She did,” Kit confirmed, trying not to breathe too deeply of the scent of his cologne because either that or just being so near to him was making her head go a tiny bit woozy.
“The tailor is just up the street, how about if we walk over together?” he suggested.
That pleased her way, way, too much.
“Okay,” she said as if it didn’t make any difference.
“I thought maybe afterward we could have dinner back here—Kira and Cutty and you and me. Since they’ll already have Betty staying with the twins and I know they’re both tired and stressed out dealing with the wedding and the construction on the house, dinner out might be a little break for them.”
“I think it might,” Kit agreed.
He nodded toward his door. “I’ll go in and call Cutty right now to make the arrangements.”
“Good idea.”
But he didn’t do that. Instead he glanced over her head at her door and said, “Did you do all right in the apartment last night? You had everything you needed? The bed wasn’t too hard or too soft?”
“I did great, had everything I needed and the bed was perfect.” Except that she’d had trouble not thinking about him in his bed next door.
“So you’re okay over there?”
“Fine,” she said, wondering if she was imagining it or whether he was purposely dragging this out.
Not that she was rushing inside herself. In fact she wasn’t even altogether invested in what they were talking about because even though she was making all the right responses to what he was saying, Kit was suddenly finding her thoughts split between that and a scenario that was forming in her head.
A scenario in which they were at the end of a date.
A date she’d enjoyed.
And they were about to kiss good-night.
But they weren’t about to kiss good-night.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she forced herself to say, attempting to escape her daydream.
Ad nodded, but he continued to look at her as if he were trying to read something in her eyes.
A moment of panic ran through Kit at the notion that he could somehow tell what she’d been thinking.
But then Ad finally took the last step to his own door and said, “Good night.”
“Thanks for the use of your kitchen and all your help tonight,” she added as she unlocked and opened her door, doing a little prolonging of her own.
“Don’t mention it. I’d be your assistant anytime,” he joked with another lascivious note in his voice, tossing her a sexy half-smile to go with it.
“Careful, I might take you up on that,” she warned as she stepped into the studio apartment and closed the door behind her.
And that was when it struck her again that Ad Walker absolutely was not like any other guy.
And that spending the last couple of hours with him hadn’t cured whatever it was she’d been infected by the moment she’d met him.
No, if anything she thought that she really had been bitten by the Ad bug. Bitten but good.
And she wasn’t sure what to do about it….
Chapter Three
“O h, Kira, it’s even more beautiful than I pictured from your description,” Kit told her friend late Monday when she got her first glimpse of Kira in her wedding dress.
After another long day of dealing with last-minute R.S.V.P.s, the caterer and seating arrangements, it was after five o’clock before Kira and Kit had been able to leave Betty with the twins and get to the tailor’s shop for the final fittings on their dresses. The delay had necessitated Kira calling both Cutty and Ad to tell them to go on their own for the alterations of their tuxedos and that they could all meet up later at the restaurant for dinner.
There hadn’t been anything Kit could do about it, but she’d regretted that she and Ad hadn’t been able to have that walk to the shop together the way they’d planned.
“It’s just beautiful,” she repeated as Kira stepped up onto the raised platform in the center of the open room where the tailor would look at what last-minute nips and tucks needed to be taken.
Kira turned a slow circle so Kit could see the wedding dress all the way around. “It is pretty, isn’t it?” she said, clearly in awe of it herself.
The gown was white satin with a full, floor-length skirt and a fitted, beaded bodice with an off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline and twenty tiny buttons down the back.
“It’s perfect,” Kit said.
“Do you think it’s okay that the veil only comes down to the my elbows? I didn’t want to be dealing with much more than that. Plus I thought a longer veil would detract from the dress.”
“I think the veil is fine at that length,” Kit assured.
“What about the tiara? Is that too much? I thought maybe the veil should just be attached to a band but it didn’t poof up right.”
The veil was connected to a small, unobtrusive rhinestone tiara.
“No, it’s not too much,” Kit answered after a more studied look at it. “It’s just right. The whole thing is just right.”
“You’re sure? Because I’m trusting you to tell me the truth.”
“What would you do if I said something was wrong? Start looking for a new dress and veil four days before the wedding?” Kit joked. Then she said, “Yes, I’m positive—the dress, the veil, the tiara are perfect. The dress just needs to be taken in slightly at the waist.”
Staring at herself in the mirror, Kira pulled the waist tighter. “It can probably go in about an inch.”
“But that’s it. I wouldn’t change another thing,” Kit said emphatically.
Apparently