Page 25 of Valentine Nook (The Valentine Nook Chronicles #1)

Lando

T he first time I went on a first date to The One True Love, I was seventeen, and she was Madeline Baxter.

I’d been a bundle of nerves leading up to it because I really liked this girl.

I spent the afternoon riding with Jeremy, galloping through the fields, checking the calves and the fence line. Anything I could do to distract myself.

Madeline lived in Lower Slaughter, a village about twenty miles from Valentine Nook, and at exactly seven o’clock, I pulled up outside her parents’ house to collect her.

I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack as I knocked on the door. I hoped she’d be just as nervous, but she was completely unfazed instead, which made it worse.

Madeline’s dark hair was fastened back with a band, and she wore the skinniest pair of jeans, making her legs seem longer than usual. To my seventeen-year-old self, she was hot. I was still growing into my size and gangly enough that it made me self-conscious.

The drive to dinner was conducted in silence because I didn’t trust myself to open my mouth and not be sick .

The rest of the evening didn’t fare much better.

Eventually, Eddie, stealthily watching from a corner of the bar, felt so sorry for me he poured out a triple whiskey, then ordered me to knock it back and get a grip.

It worked. Sort of. It gave me enough confidence to get through dinner but not enough to ask for a second date.

All first dates since then have been a marked improvement.

But when Holiday and I walk through the doors of The One True Love, Eddie takes one look at my face and silently places a triple whiskey on the bar.

Perhaps I can swap it for a towel.

One of the perks of owning a village is that I can park anywhere I want, but even sprinting in from the spot outside, we get drenched. The rain is coming down so hard that it’s almost drowning out the sound of thunder.

A fork of lightning illuminates the bar for a second before plunging us back into a dimly lit atmosphere. The weather must have kept people home because it’s much quieter than it usually is.

“Evenin’, Your Grace, ’Oliday. Rainin’ is it?” Eddie smirks, holding out a large towel, which Holiday immediately takes to pat her face dry.

“You could say that,” she replies, scraping her wet hair away from her forehead.

“The fire’s lit in the back. Take whatever table you like, no one will disturb you. I’ll come over and serve you myself.”

I don’t know whether he’s offering the privacy for Holiday or for me, but I clap an appreciative hand on his shoulder anyway and guide us through.

“This place is so stinkin’ cute,” she whispers. “I keep meaning to come in here and bribe Eddie to tell me all the stories.”

I pull out the chair for Holiday to sit, then retrieve a second towel from behind the bar and run it over my head. “I don’t think you’ll need to bribe him. He’ll give it up for free, but you’ll be here for days. Maybe months.”

“Oh yeah, and what stories do you have of this place?”

I take the space opposite. She’s cupped her face in her hands as she eagerly awaits story time. The low lighting and the flames flickering in the hearth make her appear starry-eyed as she looks at me, and I’m here for it.

“See that corner over there?” I nod to the opposite side of the room, where the wood paneling is carved with an intricate scene of Venus and Mars behind an old square table. “Rumor has it that was Shakespeare’s favorite spot to write.”

Holiday’s eyes widen. “No way. That’s seriously cool. Is that where you got your name from?”

I shake my head, trying to keep my expression as impassive as possible. “No. Walt Disney named me, remember?”

Confusion flickers on her face before she picks up a beer mat and whips it at me. “Idiot.”

“Actually, Orlando is an old family name,” I tell her. “What about yours?”

“My mom listened to a lot of Billie Holiday when she was pregnant with me, and Tanner got the family name.”

“It suits you.”

“You think?”

“I do.” I nod. For the first time since I spotted her in Claridge’s, I get to really look at her again. Wet hair scraped back, flushed cheeks, rain-smudged mascara. She looks exquisite. “A holiday, by definition, is happy, relaxing, and energizing. And that’s what you are.”

Her bottom lip rolls in, and I catch the flash of her teeth biting into it as she looks away. I have no idea where that came from, but it’s out there now, and I can’t take it back.

Plus, it’s the truth. Holiday Simpson has energized me more in the past month than I’ve felt in years.

“You’re very sweet. You know that, right? ”

Now it’s my turn to be bashful. The way she’s looking at me has my cheeks heating, and if it wasn’t for my beard, my face would be bright pink.

I’m blushing. Fucking blushing because a girl called me sweet.

“Not sure how many people would agree with you on that.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what other people think.”

Her magnetic eyes hold mine, and the sincerity behind them is almost frightening.

I look up at the bar to find Eddie watching us, waiting for the right moment to come over. I imagine he’s also waiting to see if I’m going to down the glass of whiskey still taunting me, but I have no need for it right now.

Nerves don’t exist tonight.

In fact, I realize, they rarely do around Holiday anymore. Spending time with her is easy. Talking to Holiday is easy .

Because to her, I’m just Lando, her landlord. She doesn’t want my title or my money. She wants nothing more from me than my time, and for her, I have all of it and more.

“A’right, you two, the specials are on the board. ’Oliday, what are you drinking?”

She glances at me. “Wine?”

“Sounds good. Eddie has an excellent cellar. He’ll pick one out for you once you order.”

Eddie leaves us to read the board on the wall by the bar. Holiday’s mouth silently forms the words as her eyes scan down the menu, but every couple of seconds, she turns and smiles.

I simply wait for it to happen, so by the time Holiday’s decided what she wants to eat, I still have no clue and just go with the steak pie.

She grabs Eddie before he leaves. “Wait, that’s what I want instead.”

“Good choice. ”

Eddie returns shortly with a bottle of red, showing it to me before he opens it.

Out of nowhere, my throat tightens.

We both know this bottle was my father’s favorite, the one he liked to drink on special occasions. I didn’t even know there were any left here.

It’s not particularly fancy, and there are much more valuable wines in the cellar, but he loved it.

I swallow away the lump in my throat. “Not seen one of those in a while.”

“There are still a few left. Thought you might like it tonight. You know, ’cause it’s raining and such.”

He’s much more subtle than my mother, I’ll give him that, and not that I need it, but I quite like that I have Eddie’s approval of this dinner with Holiday.

Date with Holiday.

She lifts her glass once he’s poured the wine. “To a few days of successful meetings.”

“To successful meetings,” I respond, taking a sip and savoring the burst of berries on my tongue. I try not to feel guilty about drinking it without my brothers and Clementine. “When do you start work for L’Oreal?”

Her fingers run up and down the stem of her wineglass. “I haven’t got a formal date, but the first campaign will launch in January. I have to go to Paris next month for initial meetings.”

“You don’t sound that excited.”

Her shoulders jerk up. “I am. It’s new, is all.”

“But I saw you on the bus today . . . you don’t seem that much of a novice.” That fucking bus. I nearly swerved into the next lane because I was too busy looking at her.

Once or twice, it crossed my mind to buy every single bus with that advert on it, just to have it removed. I don’t want anyone seeing her like that except me.

“No, I’m not a novice.” She laughs, but there’s weariness in her tone I don’t like. “Anyway, how were your meetings? Investments go well? What exactly do you do apart from making more money?”

I ponder her for a moment, the speed at which she changed the subject. Or shut down. It’s a move I know well, which makes me all the more curious why she did that.

I also know enough that pushing her for an answer won’t work, so I answer her question.

“It’s not me who makes the money, but yes, the investment reports for the month were better than expected. Alex has been in Hong Kong finalizing a deal on some land, which will be lucrative in the long run.”

Her eyes widen. “I like Hong Kong. What was he doing there?”

“We—Burlington Estates—bought a plot to redevelop, which will become a mall. The biggest mall in Hong Kong, actually.”

The glass stops halfway to her lips. “Wow, that can’t have been cheap.”

“Two billion dollars for the plot, another seven for the build.”

She sips her wine and puts it down. “Then it’s good we have the dinner voucher tonight.”

A laugh belts out, and it’s oddly freeing.

I never used to discuss business with Caroline because she wasn’t interested, and my mother inputs every so often when she has her quarterly reports, but for the most part, she keeps her distance.

But this, this feels . . . like we’re sharing something. A commonality. Our fields of business might be completely different, but the basics are similar enough to understand.

“Yes, it is. It clearly pays to know you.”

One perfectly shaped eyebrow lifts. “Do you travel?”

“Not much. I like being here. ”

“Hanging out doing duke things?”

“Exactly, duke things.” I grin again.

There’s a pause as Eddie brings over our steak pies. Holiday’s eyes widen at the size of it, and she picks up one of the green beans on the side and bites down.

The gravy inside still bubbles away when I stick my knife and fork into the thick puff pastry lid. “There’s nothing better than Eddie’s steak pies.”

After her first mouthful, she seems to agree because the next few minutes are conducted in silence. I must have been much hungrier than I thought, and the rain definitely added a chill to the air that’s made me crave warmth from more than simply the fire.