“Zano?” I called.

“I love this. This is beautiful,” he said in his sweet voice. “And hear me, honey, I get what you’re doing, but I need you to know that you have nothing to make up for. You gave me you and that’s all the special I need.”

God!

Seriously?

This guy was unreal.

I loved it at the same time it was undoing me. The thing was, I didn’t mind the idea of coming undone and that freaked me.

To communicate this to Ren, I curled into him and shoved my face in his chest.

His hand came up and curled around the back of my neck.

More sweet.

I couldn’t hack it.

“I need to pick a fight,” I told his shirt.

His body jolted slightly and his voice held a vein of humor when he asked, “What?”

I dropped my head back to look at him.

“I’m Ally. I’m not the romance and candlelight and flowers and champagne and sweetness and soft words that mean everything kind of girl. We need to pick a fight. This is freaking me out. And anyway, you’re an alpha badass hothead. You’re not supposed to notice flowers and candlelight. And no alpha badass hothead has the capacity to say the right thing at the right time and do it repeatedly. I know. I’ve been witnessing them in action for a while now. Counting Dad and Indy’s dad, Tom, it’s safe to say I’ve had a lifelong study.”

“Maybe your girls don’t share everything,” he suggested.

He clearly hadn’t been around to overhear the Rock Chicks gabbing.

I decided not to reply as that information might freak him.

“I’ll do my best to ignore it from here on out,” he offered.

“Appreciated,” I muttered.

He grinned, bent his head to brush his lips to mine then he let me go and ordered, “I’ll get the champagne, you get the food.”

Since this was an acceptable arrangement, I complied.

He got the champagne. I went to the table to light the candle I didn’t get to when he’d rushed me. Then I set out the food. Ren set out a champagne bucket filled with ice and the opened bottle. He handed me my glass as we both sat.

I stared at the champagne bucket.

“Babe,” he called and my eyes drifted to him.

“You have a champagne bucket,” I told him something he knew since it was him that filled it with ice and put it on the table.

His head tipped to the side. “Yeah.”

“I’m not sure what to do with that,” I shared.

“And I’m not sure why you’d have to do anything with it,” he returned.

“Um… I don’t think I know anyone with a champagne bucket, except my parents, and they got theirs for a wedding present thirty-nine years ago.”

“Which would stand to reason this is the bucket Ma and Pop got at their wedding thirty-eight years ago.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I tipped my head to the side and proceeded cautiously, “Why do you have it?”

He took a sip of champagne, set his glass aside and picked up his fork. He did all this not looking at me, which was all kinds of strange with Ren. He was a straight talker and a big fan of eye contact.

And he did all of it while he answered, “Ma couldn’t let go of shit, but she had to get rid of it. She bided her time for years, keeping it for her kids, and when we left home, she divvied it out. I got a champagne bucket I never needed until now, and ‘cause she had to unload that shit, I didn’t argue. What I did do was keep it just in case she changed her mind and wanted it back.”

I remembered during Brother’s, beer and bourbon he said his mother couldn’t deal when his dad died and I was curious to know more. Most especially why Ren relayed this seemingly tame, though sad information without looking at me.

But I sensed now was not the time to dig into that.

So I just said, “Right.”

He dropped his fork on his plate, went back to his flute and held it up to me. “Toast, baby.”

Oh shit. A toast could mean anything and that anything could include more of my undoing.

In order to ascertain whether or not to prepare, I asked, “Are you going to say something that’s going to make me feel warm inside?”

His beautiful espresso eyes lit, his lips quirked, and he asked back, “I make you feel warm inside?”

Like he needed me to confirm that.

I gave him a look as answer.

He gave me a grin.

“Okay, how’s this?” he began, lifting his flute half an inch. “To my top ten. Eyes. Ass. Pussy. Hair. Tits. Lips. Neck. Legs. Backs of your knees. Ankles. In that order.”

My brows shot up because I was shocked.

“My ass is before my happy place?”

At that, his beautiful espresso eyes were actually dancing (no joke), his body was shaking and his words were rumbling with laughter when he asked, “Your happy place?”

“Dude, totally happy.”

He let fly and burst out laughing.

I watched, enjoyed the show, and when it waned, I lifted my glass and said, “To your top ten.”

We clinked. We drank. But before we set our glasses aside, Ren’s hand snaked out, hooked me behind the neck and pulled me to him for a hard, closed mouth kiss.

When he was done, he turned his attention to his food and I followed suit thinking I really liked his dining room table.

I’d had a bite when he demanded, “Right, let’s get the bad out of the way. Update.”

I forked into a piece of kung pao shrimp and gave him what I knew he wanted, which was what I’d gleaned from a variety of phone calls I took while shopping.

Though it wasn’t much.

“No hack. Brody was affronted it was even suggested that could happen. But it hasn’t. The author’s website is registered to a non-existent address somewhere in bumfuck Wyoming. The name it’s registered under is not the author’s name, but it’s also a person who doesn’t exist.”

“Dead ends,” Ren murmured, sounding displeased.

“Sorry, honey,” I murmured back. His eyes caught mine and he nodded. “They’re widening the net,” I assured him.

He nodded again while turning his attention back to his plate.

I took a bite, swallowed and kept to our current theme of getting the bad out of the way by saying, “I got some more bad news today.”

His eyes came to me and, seriously, no joke, I could do nothing for a year but stare into those eyes and I’d be totally cool.

Maybe two years.

Or three.

“What?” he asked when I said nothing.