Page 36 of No Knight (My Kind of Hero #3)

Matt

“Look at that,” I say as we get back to the car. “Not a parking ticket in sight.”

“Okay, smart-ass.” She pulls an unimpressed face. “So you got lucky.”

“I told you I was feeling lucky. In fact, I’m always lucky.”

Call me a romantic, but her hand moves very slightly, almost as though she’s about to touch her stomach. She doesn’t follow through, because that would be too revealing. Instead, she sends me a look: You’re crazy .

Maybe I’m crazy about you. “I wonder if ...”

“Where are you going?” Her face is an absolute picture as I begin to wander up the driveway of the house I’ve parked in front of. Large, detached, with a Regency-period facade. Picture-box perfect, really.

“I’m just gonna have a look.”

“You can’t—that’s trespassing. It’s someone’s property! Matt, seriously,” she hisses as I saunter away. “Come back!”

“In a minute.”

“If you don’t come back here, I swear I’ll ...”

I halt in my steps, feeling a slow smile spreading across my face. “Make it worth my while?”

“Urgh!” She crosses her arms. “I won’t call emergency services when you get bitten by a big-ass guard dog.”

“To be fair, it does look like the kind of place that should have security.” I glance up at the camera in the roofline. Then give it a wave. “Oh, look—it has.”

“Matt!” she kind of growls this time. Like an annoyed Chihuahua.

Because I don’t want to stress her out too much, I pull a key fob out of my pocket. “Who knew you were such a little Goody Two-shoes?”

“There’s nothing wrong with following rules,” she retorts pertly. “Rules are created for reasons. Mostly for reasons like you.” But then her mouth clamps shut as the security gate begins to close between us. Then open again almost immediately. “You live here?” she accuses.

“Yeah, I do.” I make my way back down the driveway and go to take her hand.

“Asshole,” she says, snatching it away. But she’s smiling. Reluctant and unimpressed (or pretending) but smiling anyway. And that makes me strangely happy.

“Would you like to . . .”

“It’s a little too late to ask me if I’d like to come back for coffee.” This she says with a cocked hip and a pat to her stomach.

The sight ... that attitude. The suggestion in her words? It feels like a shot of stardust blown by an angel through my veins. “At least you know I can’t get you pregnant.” Too soon?

“At least, not again,” she concedes evenly.

At least not for a while, I think as she follows me up the driveway, and I bite my tongue to keep from saying, We’ll have such fun trying .

“I bet you’re one of those guys who loves his toys,” she says, spotting the Vanquish.

“Weird,” I murmur, studying it. I thought it was parked in the garage.

“It is a little weird. Unless you’re Batman.”

“You’re funny.” I input the security code at the front door. The locks disengage, and it clicks open.

“I see you got Batman’s front door too,” Ryan says as I press it wider and usher her inside.

“Oh, my.” She turns a slow circle in the entrance hall, her soft-soled boots almost silent on the black-and-white tiled floor.

She takes in the sweeping staircase, the antique table in the center of the hall with a silver urn that’s supposed to hold flowers, and the massive chandelier above it.

“This is like something from Bridgerton .” Her voice sounds awe filled.

“Without the flowers,” I say. Ryan jerks around and stares at me as though I’ve grown another head. “I haven’t seen the show,” I add quickly. “Just the trailer and the advertising shit plastered all over the buses.”

“Which still leaves me kind of curious if you’ve read the books.”

I keep my expression bland to her questioning one. “Have you read them?”

“I’m impressed you even know what I’m talking about.”

“Behold.” I hold out my arms, the paper bakery bag dangling from my left wrist. “A modern man.” I give a theatrical bow.

“Also, one who has sisters,” I say, straightening again.

“There might be one or two of their romance books lying about,” I add knowing full well there are.

Because Letty left them. Like unsubtle hints.

“That sounds like a line,” she says with a crook of her head. “A cover-up. Are you a closet romance fan, Matt?”

“Not closeted at all. Who doesn’t love love, Ryan?” I don’t wait for her to answer as I put down the pastries and help her from her coat. And she lets me. I chuck it over the newel post, and she pops her bobble hat on top before fluffing her hair.

“What?” she asks, catching me watching her.

I’m pretty sure the appropriate response is not I want to gobble you up .

“Nothing.” I shove my hands into the pockets of my dark jeans, shoulders up around my ears. “Kitchen?” No grand tour. We should probably avoid rooms with soft surfaces—beds and stuff.

“Sure.” She nods, and I swipe up the bakery stuff. “Did you grow up in a house like this?” she asks as we make our way downstairs to the garden level, where the kitchen is. That’s the family kitchen, not the outdoor kitchen. Or the catering one. Or the kitchen in the empty housekeeper’s apartment.

“Nah. Growing up, home was a redbrick semi on the outskirts of Dublin. My dad sold insurance, and my ma worked in the office of the local school. What about you?”

“I didn’t grow up in a house like this.” So bland a delivery tells its own story as we enter the kitchen.

A story that seems to have nothing to do with bricks and mortar.

“My mom had ... issues. Alcohol and anger mainly,” she says, hopping up on a tall stool.

“Like a good Beaujolais and hunk of Brie, they went real well together. She also had a lot of boyfriends,” she says, looking anywhere but at me.

“I couldn’t wait to get out of the place. ”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur as I set the bakery bag on the counter and pull out the box.

“Not your fault.”

I can still be sorry, whether she wants me to be or not. “Where’d you grow up?”

“In a pissant town in Bumfuck, North Carolina.”

I cant my head like an inquisitive terrier. “I did wonder about that hint in your accent.”

“I do not have an accent. Bar the obvious one,” she adds with a flick of her hand. “I worked very hard to get rid of it. Y’all .”

I smile, mainly because there’s nothing I can add. Nothing she wants to hear, at least.

“Can I get you a drink?” I make my way to the other side of the kitchen. “Juice? Tea? Water? Another decaf?”

“Water. Sparkling, if you have it.”

“Got it.” I turn to the concealed fridge, the size of a catering one.

“You have a beautiful home,” she says, taking in the dark cabinetry and fancy marble countertops. “Really, just gorgeous.”

“Thanks.” The Sanpellegrino bottles clink as I pull one from the shelf. I crack the cap. “The place had been split into flats when I bought it,” I say, pouring the effervescent liquid into a glass. “It’s been a labor of love.”

“You didn’t ...” She circles her finger in the air. “Your labor?”

“Well, I didn’t put in an underground basement, gym, and swimming pool, but everything I could do, I did. I designed the kitchen,” I add as I put the glass and bottle down in front of her. “Helped fit it. Repaired the Georgian moldings, stripped a hundred years of paint from the staircase.”

“You’re pretty good with your hands. I mean—”

“Glad to see you don’t have a bad memory.” Pleasure pulses through me as her gaze dips behind the curtain of her hair.

“It wasn’t your hands that got us into this predicament,” she murmurs, maybe not for my ears. I laugh anyway as I pull out a couple of side plates.

“Some might say predicament . Others might say blessing .”

“I like that.”

I pause and consider how I must’ve acted in the wine bar.

I hope I’ve made my feelings clearer since then.

“Yeah, I do too.” I pull open a drawer and lift out a couple of linen napkins.

Now, wouldn’t that impress my mother. “I know there’s still lots to think about, logistics and such, but yeah, I’m excited. ”

“Good.” She nods a few times, maybe in surprise. Or relief as she blows out a slow breath. “That’s good to hear.”

“I’m glad,” I say as I untie the string on the pastry box before spinning it around and setting it between us. “There’s a reason I brought you here today, rather than out somewhere for brunch.”

“As long as it doesn’t include a basement and handcuffs.”

I tsk again. “There you go spoiling my surprises.” I reach into the box, pull out a random pastry, and drop it to my plate.

“You’re a trip,” she says, following my direction with a slow, exaggerated shake of her head. I get a little kick of pleasure when she opts for the zeppole. A zeppola ? I can’t feckin’ remember!

“That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. Trips,” I repeat. “Specifically, about you leaving.”

She keeps her eyes on her pastry for a beat. “It’s not going to be easy. But like I said, this is on me.”

“No, this is not a you thing, Ryan. Not anymore.”

“I appreciate you saying that, but you don’t need to feel as though you have to make things right.

” Her attention drops again as she turns her little zeppola between her thumb and forefinger.

“We had one night together, and it was amazing. Just what I needed, as it turned out.” Her eyes meet mine again.

“And an amazing but unexpected thing will come out of that night, and it’s great that you want to be part of it all, but that doesn’t mean anything more than that. ”

That told me, didn’t it?

Well, fuck that.

“Anything more than becoming a father,” I retort. “And wanting to be involved in a child’s life? Our child’s life.” That’s my pivot, of course. I’m not giving up.

The thought of Ryan walking away ... it’s unthinkable. Because as much as I want to be in this child’s life, I want her too. It’s early days, and I get that these are big words and promises, life-changing sentiments. But I want her in my bed. In my arms. In my life. I want this to work.

I want that chance, at least. And I can’t have it while she’s living somewhere else.