“Take it,” she said, humor now dancing in her eyes. “You need it more than I do.”
“I really shouldn’t. It’s your breakfast.”
Deliberately slow, she shrugged a shoulder and inched the pastry closer to her mouth. I gawked at her parted lips, at the shiny and alluring roll, too. She halted right before closing that last inch, holding it midair. I looked up, meeting her gaze again.
My stomach growled.
“Oh,” she said. “I think I just heard your stomach trying to tell me something.”
If I hadn’t been so focused on pretending I wasn’t lusting after the sausage roll, her comment wouldn’t have caught me by surprise. But it did, and it pulled a bark of laughter right out of me.
Rosie’s mouth stretched, and she joined me with a chuckle of her own. A real one, I could tell. Finally. I liked it. “Eat it,” she ordered through her smile. “I insist, Lucas. It will make me happy if you do.”
I’ll never know what exactly tipped the balance, but I stretched an arm and took the pastry off her fingers. “Thanks, Rosie.”
Under her attentive gaze, I brought it to my lips, took a bite, and—
“Dios mío.” I moaned. “This is one of the best”—I took another bite—“things to ever bless”—and another one—“my taste buds.”
Her laughter came again.
I glanced at her, finding her eyes on me. On my lips.
“Like it?” she asked.
“Like it?” I repeated, shaking my head. “This roll deserves more than ‘like.’？” I licked my index finger. “It deserves love.” I repeated the motion with my thumb. “It deserves to be seduced and worshipped.”
Now her cheeks were flushed, probably from secondhand embarrassment for my shameless display. But I was a passionate man when it came to food. Especially pastries.
She recovered, only the tips of her ears remaining pink. “You Martíns really have a thing for food, don’t you?”
I flashed her a grin, not caring to wipe the grease and runaway crumbs off my mouth. “Can’t speak for all of us, but if you bring me one of these every day, I might fall to my knees and swear eternal loyalty to you, Rosalyn Graham. It’d take me about a week. Probably less.”
That seemed to stun her into silence.
I tilted my head, wondering if she was that shy or just guarded around strangers. Either way, it really didn’t matter, because I wasn’t exactly deterred by any of those things. Especially after she’d fed me breakfast.
To my surprise, Rosie pulled another pastry out of the bag. “Here. Have this one, too.”
“You really are an angel straight out of heaven,” I told her, surprising myself when I realized I wasn’t lying all that much. “But I don’t deserve any more of your kindness.”
“You do,” she countered, pinning me with a serious look.
I waved a hand in front of me. “Can’t and won’t.”
“Take it, or… we won’t ever be friends. And you said… you said you wanted to, so…”
So, not that shy.
Grinning like she was giving me the world instead of a piece of deliciously greasy dough, I leaned on my elbows, getting closer to her face. I made sure to meet her gaze. “Only if we share.” I snatched the upper half of the roll. “As much as I enjoyed putting up a show for you, I’d rather not eat alone.”
Rosie seemed to consider my offer, but she eventually took the pastry to her lips. And when we were done, she pulled a third one, split it in two, and handed me a half, which I accepted with an even wider smile.
“So, Rosie…” I took a sip of my now lukewarm coffee, letting my gaze travel down her neck and taking in the off-shoulder sweater covering her upper body. I wondered if she had been headed to the office. “You work at the same firm as Lina, right? What was the name… Tech something?”
“InTech,” Rosie answered with some sort of grimace. “And I… did. Not anymore. I… It’s a long story.”
I waited for her to elaborate but even though her lips opened and closed a couple of times, she never did.
I hummed, tapping my fingers against the table. “I’ll make you a deal.”
She frowned. “A deal?”
My lips twitched. “A game. A ‘get to know each other’ game, you know. Because if we’re going to be friends, we should break the ice somehow.” I was trying my luck here, I knew that. She had no reason to share a single thing with me, but I knew stalling when I saw it. And Rosie could have been on her way already. But she was here. Sitting with me.