Not a Second Chance by Laura Jardine Page A

just couldn’t help it.
    She was wearing a deep red, off-the-shoulder dress, now partially covered by a light jacket. Her hair was pulled back, a few wisps framing her face. Every inch of her was stunning. His fingers itched to slide up her arm, remove that jacket, and push the top of her dress down even farther. Or maybe push up the bottom of her dress instead.
    But they needed to do something else first. The single shrimp—while delicious—had certainly not satisfied his appetite.
    “Where do you want to go for dinner?” he asked.
    “Somewhere with big portions. Somewhere that doesn’t serve a raw egg yolk and a garlic clove beside a piece of lettuce and call it a salad.”
    He led her to a quaint Eastern European restaurant that was older than he was. It was simple and bright compared to Geyser. Red chairs, wooden tables, a few small paintings on the walls. An older woman, her gray hair pulled back in a tight bun, showed them to a table near the back.
    “I’ve heard of this place,” Allison said, picking up her menu. “But not for the same reasons I’ve heard about Geyser.”
    “Just so you know, the schnitzel flops over the edge of the plate.”
    “I’ll have that, then.”
    “Good choice.”
    He closed his menu and rubbed his hands over his face. What a disaster of an evening. And yet he wanted to smile. Because Allison was a great fake girlfriend, and now he got to be alone with her.
    “I’m sorry I put you through that,” he said after they’d placed their orders.
    She shrugged. “It’s okay. I just can’t believe you see your parents at all.”
    “Three times a year, one of them at Christmas.” He paused. “You didn’t need to stick up for—”
    “It’s okay. I wanted to. I had to.”
    “And when your sister came by, I sat on the couch and didn’t even introduce myself.”
    “But that’s what I wanted you to do.” Allison looked away from him. “If you’d pretended to be my boyfriend, Jo would have told my parents, and they would have asked far too many questions. I don’t need that.” She turned back toward him and quirked her lips.
    The waitress brought over a plate of rye bread, and Sidney pounced on it. He was starving. And he also wanted their entrées to come as quickly as possible so they could move on to other activities.
    “This is probably more food than all four of our appetizers and entrées put together at Geyser,” Allison said, reaching for a slice.
    “The food there is actually pretty good. It’s just really small and way too expensive. And some of it doesn’t make any sense to me. Like the compressed celery or charred apple seeds and ribbons that came with the beef lollipop.”
    “I was wondering about that one. Maybe the apple seeds were just a garnish.”
    “I considered ordering the deconstructed pizza but was afraid that would mean deconstructing the pizza dough into flour and yeast.”
    “I’m pretty sure that’s what the man at the table next to us ordered. They didn’t break it down quite that much. But I think that was a reasonable fear.”
    Allison bit into the slice of bread. He was distracted by her lips, full and kissable. Hell, he’d kissed her in front of his parents, right beside that freaking sculpture of a human heart, less than half an hour ago. And he couldn’t wait to do it again.
    And again.
    Maybe Sidney had been wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep with her and discard her like she was any other woman.
    He tried to push those thoughts aside. Don’t worry about the future. Not now.
    “We’re getting along,” he observed.
    “I suppose we are.” She reached for a packet of butter. “We didn’t really fight until the end. Sure, we would argue before then, but those arguments were always punctuated with make-out sessions. Nothing really serious.”
    “I remember.” But there seemed to be a fine line between fights and lighthearted arguments when it came to the two of them.
    “Perhaps we’ve gotten it all out of our