Mostly, she added. She was mostly looking forward to it.
“This trip is my last hurrah before I enter the working world,” she told me.
“Then let’s make sure you make the most of your last few days here. Would you like that?”
“I would like that very much.”
Then I kissed her in the moonlight and it felt like this was exactly why I was meant to work in Barcelona that summer. Later, when I told her I had a job in New York, I was more sure than ever that fate was looking out for me.
* * * *
“This is delicious crème brûlée, but what I really want to know is if yours is better,” Penny says, as if she’s throwing down the gauntlet.
“Of course mine is better. Is that your way of saying you want me to make one for you?” I say, wiggling an eyebrow. If she’s going to flirt with me, then, hell, am I ever going to flirt right back.
“I would never turn down a dessert like this,” she says, and I can picture her in my kitchen, cooking for her, bringing the spoon to her lips, saying try this.
She’d dart out her tongue, lick a dash of the delicious concoction, and roll her eyes in delight. Then she’d tell me what else she wanted to sample. I’d grab her hips, push her up against the counter, and show her that my skills extend all through the house, from the kitchen to the bedroom, and any place else she wants to try.
“Would you like to do this again, Penny?”
Her lips part, and she doesn’t answer at first. She sets down her fork, spreads her hands over her napkin, then meets my gaze. “I would, but there’s something I need to…”
“What is it?” I ask, wondering if there’s an issue with us working together on the event, if she needs to wait until it’s over for us to go out again.
“It’s that—”
A male voice breaks the moment. “And how was everything?”
I grit my teeth but flash a smile at the waiter, though I wish he knew not to interrupt a conversation. “Everything was wonderful. We’ll take the check,” I say, and when he leaves I return my attention to Penny. That youthful vulnerability is back in her eyes.
It’s knocking me off-kilter. I can barely focus on the moment, so I excuse myself for the men’s room, splash water on my face, grab a paper towel, and pat my cheeks dry.
When I return, crossing through the tables, I stop in my tracks. Penny’s back is to me for the first time. She fiddles with her hair. All those long, lush strands are up in her hands, her neck exposed.
A hush falls over my world, like the rest of Manhattan has gone mute, and the spotlight is only on her.
I know it’s her.
I’m positive.
I’ve kissed that neck. Outside a dress shop in Barcelona, where I told her she’d look lovely in a red dress. I wrapped my arms around her from behind and dusted soft, tender kisses on the back of her neck, her feminine scent drifting into my nostrils. “You’d look so lovely in that, my Penelope. And even lovelier when I take it off you. Actually, just wear nothing with me.”
She laughed and leaned into me, tilting up her face. “Maybe next time you see me, I’ll be wearing that dress and you can have your wish.”
“Having you again is my wish. Having you tonight is my wish right now.”
“Have me,” she whispered.
Time no longer slides jarringly back and forth. The two warring trains that kept crashing into each other on the same tracks are now linked together. Penny is my Penelope, and I’m struck with a sense of wonder. A feeling of awe. Scrubbing my hand over my jaw, I try to decide what to do next. And whether I should feel mad, thrilled, frustrated, or hoodwinked.
I’m sure she knows I’m the same person—same profession, same last name.
I’m not sure why she didn’t tell me, but right now I want to hear her say it. Who she is to me. I want the words to fall from those lips I could never have kissed enough.
I walk up to her, filled with a deep desire that had gone latent over the years but has been reignited in an evening. Gently, I set my hands on her shoulders. She flinches, but softens immediately as she turns to meet my gaze. I bend my head to her neck, about to ask “Did you ever get the red dress?”
But she speaks up. “Gabriel, when I said there was something I needed to tell you, it’s this—you were right. You’ve met me before.”
The fact that she went first thrills me. “I know,” I whisper, and she shivers as my breath ghosts over her neck. “You’re my Penelope.”
“I am.” Her voice is filled with the same sort of hope that courses through me. I can’t help myself. I press my lips to her neck in the softest, barely there kiss. She trembles, and that’s all I need to know. “I’m Penny Jones.”
I reach into my wallet, fish around for some bills, and toss enough and then some on the table to cover the check.
I take her hand and lead her out of the restaurant. We walk a few feet away, stopping in front of a brownstone with a long, green set of steps, and a small iron fence running around the street-level front. A tree canopies us, and the road is blissfully quiet for now. The glow from a nearby streetlamp illuminates her face.
Her face.
I’m not crazy. I’m completely sane, and I knew it had to be her. Now I want to know what the hell is going on. “Why didn’t you say who you were the other day?” I ask, and that small shred of frustration bubbles back up. “You said you were Penny Smith.”