There’s a knock on my half-cracked bedroom door, and then Jacobs pushes it open further. I set down my book, prepared for him to tell me it’s time to come down for dinner.

“Mr. Mercier is downstairs. As usual, he’s asked me if you’re available. Should I tell him—”

There’s no concealing my smile.

I’ve held out hope that Emmett would come today, but I was doing a good job of trying not to show it. All day, I’ve gone about my normal life. I worked at Morgan’s and ate lunch with Collette and even managed to sell a painting in the afternoon.

Now I leap off my bed, half-running, half-walking toward my door, and then I rush out into the hall.

“I can tell him you’ll come down!” Jacobs says, trying desperately to hold on to some kind of decorum, but I’m already barreling down the stairs.

Emmett stands in the doorway, cradling a book and a box of chocolates. La Maison du Chocolat.

He looks up to see me just as I finish descending the stairs.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” I say, breathless.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d turn me away.”

How could I?

“I worried about it all day,” he admits, passing over the chocolates and the book.

We only left each other this morning. I stayed at his house, in his bed, cocooned in his sheets all night until he had to wake for work and I had to dress to get back home so I could shower and hurry off to Morgan’s.

He offered me everything: a change of clothes, breakfast, his driver.

I pressed a kiss to his lips then slipped out his front door, not wanting to be a burden.

Now, I see how silly that was.

“You shouldn’t have worried.”

“You could have stayed.”

“In your bed?” I ask in a lowered voice.

He grins. “Yes. We could be there now, in fact.”

I set his gifts on the entry table beside us and shake my head. “No. I have other plans.”

His brow cocks with curiosity.

“A date.”

At this, he nearly laughs.

“A real one,” I add. “You’ll buy me pizza at a grungy little place and it’ll be the best slice we’ve ever had, and we’ll share a bottle of cheap wine and it’ll be too loud in the restaurant, and we’ll barely be able to hear each other, and all you’ll be thinking about is how you’ll be able to convince me to go home with you at the end of the night.”

He helps me into my wool coat then ties the belt around my waist for me.

“You think it will take convincing?” he asks, all that devilish charm practically oozing out of him.

“God no, but at least I can make it seem that way, right?”

He laughs and bends down to kiss me. It’s chaste at first, but maybe it would have deepened if my grandmother didn’t clear her throat behind us.