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“And you don’t want them to.”

“No. Not especially. I need to be able to hire people, I need to be able to run my business. I’d like to be able to go out like this. I want to be...something like normal someday. Or at least, normal enough.”

Silence lapsed between them, and her chest ached. She wanted something she’d never been.

He just wanted to feel like himself again.

“All right then. I guess we’ll have our drinks, and we’ll dance.”

“All right.”

He looked at her, his expression going intense, and her breath froze in her chest. Then he reached out, slowly, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Right then, everything in her body gave thanks to Fia’s demand that she take her hair down. Because then he pinched a silken strand between his thumb and forefinger and drew them down a curl. He looked at her like she might be magic. And even though she thought he was wrong, she felt it somewhere, shimmering low in her belly.

The spark in his eyes wasn’t like ice now, but it had warmed to something like a blue flame.

“You look beautiful.”

He’d said it earlier and it had been like a balm. But here it was something else entirely. A bridge to a whole new place.

Toinsanitymaybe.

She had to remember that he was flirting as practice. For all to see.

“You’re doing a pretty good job,” she said, her throat going tight. “If this were a math quiz, I would probably give you an A.”

He laughed, and he looked almost shocked to be laughing, and that did something to her. Warmed her. He was laughing at her for saying something offbeat. He thought it was funny.

She should’ve known that he might. After all, Lydia found her entertaining; that was how their friendship worked. They had off-kilter senses of humor, and they liked that about each other.

So, of course, it stood to reason that Gideon might also like it.

“Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Makes me feel warm inside.”

“I was hoping that it might.”

“You have no idea.”

He was performing. But it still felt nice. And they were drawing attention, which was what they wanted.

“Dancing?”

“Yeah,” she said.

But when he whisked her off the barstool, she wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t prepared for what it would be like when he took her hand. Wasn’t prepared for what it would be like to be caught up in his arms. Pulled up against his hard chest and...everything else.

People were dancing, but she felt like they were the only two people in the whole bar. Maybe the only two people in town.

She’d never experienced anything like this before.

She’d had a crush on him, yes. And then, she’d tried to find a guy to make out with when she was older, and none of it had been this.

The reality of being the focus of his attention.

But it wasn’t the same.

When he’d looked at her before, his gaze had been easy. There had been something engaging and soft about it. And it wasn’t that at all now.