Page 31 of No Knight (My Kind of Hero #3)

“You had a conversation with my niece. She’s a dotey little thing,” he adds, holding out his hand in a height approximation that spells out little . “Yellow dress, red rose, duffle coat? Dressed as a princess?”

“Belle, I remember.” I smile despite the situation. My situation. “She’d dropped her rose.”

“Yeah, Clodagh said. That’s her name.”

“Yeah, she told me.” I told her she had a pretty name, and she asked me why I had a boy’s name. I’d gone to the box office to book a show as part of the full London experience. A London experience that’s turning out to be shorter than the one I envisaged, for sure.

“At first, I thought it must’ve been wishful thinking.”

“Wishful?” The word is a hopeful little sound floating in the air between us.

“That I’d imagined you there. Mistaken you for someone else.

Someone else with dark hair and a green coat.

” Another small smile, like he’s remembering my dress, not my underwear, as I ignore that hopeful flutter.

“But then Clo told me about the zeppole fan club you both belong to, so ... I ran after you.”

“You ran?” There goes that flutter again. “Ran where?”

“Clo said you had a Tube to catch, so I legged it to the Oxford Street station.”

I put my elbow to the table and my palm to my face.

“But that place is like a maze.” As someone who’s lived in New York, I have found the London Underground network more than a little overwhelming.

Add in the DLR, the Lizzie Line, and the sheer size of Transport for London’s network, and, well, I’ve gotten lost more than a couple of times.

And don’t get me started on the misleading station names: East India.

Barking. Pudding Mill Lane. Swiss Cottage.

Elephant & Castle, where there is neither elephant nor castle. And what’s with Cockfosters?

“Yeah, it is a bit,” Matt agrees.

“There are so many corridors and escalators and platforms,” I add in a murmur as a curiously warm sensation spreads through my chest. He was looking for me. “But you couldn’t possibly have—”

“Found you?” His green eyes are all pleased and sparkling. “But I did. I was knackered, sweaty and breathless, and my thighs were burning like mad. Then I saw you. I called your name, but you didn’t hear.”

“I didn’t know,” I say softly, wondering how that meeting might’ve changed some things. Not all things, I think, my brow flickering with consternation.

Don’t get sucked in. Everything is about to change anyway.

“In hindsight, it’s just as well you didn’t see me,” he adds. “Not given the state I was in. I wasn’t exactly looking my best.”

My eyes flit over him, and I hope he can’t see my doubt. He’d make a sack look appealing.

“I’m not sure a satin sash and tasseled epaulets are really my thing.”

“Tasseled what now?” My response is part chuckle, part huff. For the world, I can’t see him dressed like that in my head.

“I was the prince to Clodagh’s princess. I had on this sky blue frock coat and white feckin’ gloves. I looked like a complete eejit!”

I laugh despite myself. I’d forgotten how easily he made me do that.

Right or wrong, I feel the tension inside me melting as I process the fact that not only is Matt an uncle, but he’s also the kind of uncle who’ll play dress-up for his niece.

The kind who spends time with her and takes her to fun places, who’ll make himself look silly for a little girl’s whims. Maybe just to see her smile.

And that fills me with gladness. It makes me feel happy. And a little sad at the same time.

“That sounds like something I’d pay good money to see.”

Matt coughs into his fist, and my cheeks instantly turn radioactive as I realize what I’ve just said. I’d pay him. Again? Man, this blushing thing. I don’t know where it’s come from or why it started.

“I just meant—”

“Apparently, next time I’ve got to be Gaston.”

I let out a breath, grateful we’re not lingering on my embarrassment. “Because of your chin,” I rush on, nodding a little manically.

“Is it really that bad?” With an amused expression, he brings his fingers and thumb to it.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” What the hell is going on with me? “You just have a superhero chin.” That’s not any better, stupid brain!

“Apparently, Gaston is a bit of a shit.”

Again, I’m thankful we’re not dwelling. “I guess that’s the thing about a pretty face. We sometimes get blinded by it.”

His happy expression falls. “I didn’t set out to hurt you.”

“Don’t have to mean it for it to hurt,” I murmur.

“You’re right,” he replies solemnly. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. I should’ve insisted.”

A memory instantly flickers to life. “ Are you married? ” I’d asked, standing in front of him.

“ I wouldn’t be here if I was. ” His eyes looked so green, so lust glazed, and my own desire reflected back at me. “ I don’t think— ”

“ Less thinking ,” I’d whispered. God, how I’d rubbed myself against him like a cat. He didn’t really stand a chance.

“I shouldn’t have let myself get carried away.”

Matt’s voice yanks me back to the moment, my perspective altered somewhat. I’ve been blaming him since yesterday. Blaming him for his choices and ignoring my own part in that first heated moment.

“I fancied you pretty much from the moment I set eyes on you in that grotty pub. From the second your palm landed on my chest. It sounds pathetic, I know, but I just said something stupid, and you misunderstood. Instead of putting you right, I just rolled with it like a complete eejit.”

“But why? Why did you do that?” Because it makes no sense. Matt is as hot as any man I have ever met. I know it wasn’t to impress me.

“It was a precaution,” he says, visibly uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to end up spending the night with you.”

I say nothing. And he says nothing, like there’s nothing more to be said.

“Wow,” I manage eventually. “I hope that sounded better in your head.”

“What? No, that’s not what—”

“Maybe you should’ve practiced first. Said it to a mirror a few times.”

“Fuck it,” he says, slumping back and kind of throwing up his hands. “Well, here’s something else you won’t believe. I don’t do one-night stands.”

“Like you’re not an escort?” I retort, my words ugly.

“I’d make a really shit escort.”

Au contraire, my brain offers. You hit all the high spots.

“I want an emotional connection as much as the physical. I want to be in your head, and want you to be in mine, as much as I want to be inside you.”

Something in his tone, his sincerity, allows my mind to slip back in time again. In his lap, skin to skin, nothing between us but the look on his face and the way he said my name. He was inside me, and I him. And suddenly, I believe him.

“Remember, I’d also spent the afternoon at an ex’s wedding. I had some idea of what you had to look forward to. Or not. And I tried to talk you out of it.”

“Fine, but what happened still happened, whether you meant it to or not. And you still lied to me,” I retort, hanging on to that line of blamelessness despite my slippery grip on it. “Do you have any idea how I felt yesterday? What I’d thought back on as a perfect night suddenly turning so sordid.”

“Sordid,” he repeats with a curt nod. “Kind of like how you left me an envelope stuffed full of cash.”

“Which I feel so great about now,” I mutter as something painful blooms inside, like a poke to an old bruise.

Embarrassment makes me defensive and mean.

Those old familiar hurts make me want to crawl out of my own skin.

“Feel free to return it.” I fold my arms across my chest. “You with all your success—I’m sure you don’t need it. ”

“I get why you did,” he says, without bite now.

“But we both know that the money, the lies, none of it detracts from the night we had. I know I should’ve said before we got to the suite, but I wanted to tell you in private, not where those arseholes might be hanging about.

I was so into you, and you were amazing.

” Words begin to spill from him. “So beautiful and brave, and I wanted you more than I’ve wanted anything.

I told myself it would be worse to tell you once your dress was on the floor—you were already half naked, and I’d already half lost my mind.

But that’s not to say it was altruism. I just wanted you so much. ”

Grief and hope bubble up inside me, the sensations taking me by surprise so badly that I give a sharp sob. Because no matter how sincere he sounds, no matter how heartfelt his words, I’m about to tell him something that’s about to change both our worlds.

And maybe his mind.

“Hey, now,” he says, moving closer.

I press my palm to my mouth, vehemently shaking my head. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near. Just ... too late .

“Sweetheart,” he croons, rubbing his big palm in circles across my back, the fingers of his other hand folding over mine. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“You—didn’t—make—me—cry,” I gulp out between sobs, my chest and shoulders jerking with each word.

“But I have. I’d punch myself in the face if I thought it’d do any good.”

“You—didn’t—make—me—sad.” I suck in air like a woman who’s preparing to be drowned by a wave. “You—made—me—pregnant.”