He nodded sheepishly and made his way into the restaurant.
“They serve meatballs, Mr. Clark. Did you hear that?”
“Yes,” he answered, still chuckling. “I did.”
I shuffled in my seat and grabbed my napkin, laying it over my lap. “So, you said on our way in that you bought this restaurant. Why? It doesn’t fit your normal real estate acquisition criteria.”
“I like it. The place has character.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Hunny, you have no idea.”
“I think I’m starting to. You blow me away.”
“No, Alexis, you blow me away.”
“No. I just blow you,” I said with certainty while eye-fucking him.
One of the members of the duet missed a note, clearly mucking up the tune.
I bit my lip and sunk down a little in my seat, whispering, “I think they speak English.”
Bryce leaned forward and took hold of my hands. “They do,” he said with amusement.
Just as butterflies started to flutter in my stomach at the look of love in his eyes, our waiter appeared with our drinks and, behind him, another waiter with a large plate of spaghetti and meatballs.
We both sat back as they placed the large dish and drinks on the table. “Buon apettito.”
“Grazie,” Bryce and I replied simultaneously, my accent nowhere near as sexy as his.
The duet started playing “Bella Notte” again, this time a little more pronounced. The heightened sound of the accordion and the large plate in front of us—which we were about to share—made me giggle.
“You don’t miss a thing, do you? Although if my memory serves me correctly, Butch passed Lady a meatball with his nose.”
Bryce leaned forward with a playful grin and poked his nose into the plate, nudging a meatball in my direction. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter, not only from his daring move, but also due to the fact he now had bolognaise sauce on the tip of nose.
I leaned forward and licked it off, then quickly patted his nose dry with my napkin. “Why thank you, kind sir.”
I kept laughing as I picked up a piece of spaghetti giving him one end while I took the other. Then, just like the movie, we both started sucking it in, grinning at each other as our mouths moved closer to one another’s. When the spaghetti disappeared, our lips were touching, massaging, kissing while we both swallowed our halves of the noodle. I thanked him with a flick of my tongue then sat back down in my seat.
Forking some spaghetti into my mouth, I figured I’d be just as daring as he was and slurp up a long noodle like Lady had in the movie, forgetting that the sauce would flick all over the place. My natural instinct had me closing my eyes to avoid the spiralling sauce from entering them.
After I’d finished my marathon slurp, I opened one eye and spotted Bryce sitting still, his chest heaving, and his expression mixed with want and something else.
“Fuck it, I can’t wait any longer. You are just too fucking adorable and sexy, and I’m not waiting anymore.” he stood up quickly, startling me, just as it started to rain. Oh, God! We can’t have sex here. Can we?
“Oh no,” I said, looking up into the droplets now falling all around me and thinking he was about to have his wicked way with me on this very spot.
Bryce walked around to my side of the table, and just as I was about to get up and out of the rain, he bent down on one knee before me. “Alexis, from the moment I first laid eyes on you my heart held a secret, a secret I later found out to be true love. You ensnare me completely with your beauty, your wit, your humour and your kindness. And you wake in me every single emotion that I hold. Hunny, I don’t want to live another day without you, I don’t want to take another breath without you, and I don’t want to wait another second to ask you to become my wife.”
I watched him through drenched eyes and cheeks reach inside his jacket pocket and pull out a small velvet box. My breath caught and my heart became motionless within my chest as the heavens opened and showered rain down upon us.
He opened the lid of the box, revealing a diamond ring. Holy, f...f...f...fuck! I was stunned beyond all imagination, seeing a huge twinkling chunk of diamond before me.
He looked up into my eyes, sincerity saturating his handsome face together with droplets of rain. “Alexis Elizabeth Summers, will you marry me?”
My mouth was open as I stared from his face to the ring and back to his face again, warm tears streaking down my cheeks mixing perfectly with the cool of the rain.
“Yes,” I said, barely able to speak. Then, as if reality just up and smacked me in the face, I started nodding profusely. “Yes. Yes. Yes, Bryce. I will marry you.”