He hesitated.
Then:
“Would you have dinner with me?”
My heart skipped.
The world seemed to become strangely quiet.
“Mr. Bellamy—”
“Tristan.”
I stopped.
“Tristan.”
He smiled.
“I promise there will be no SUVs involved.”
I laughed.
Despite myself.
“That is a very specific promise.”
“I learned from experience.”
I looked at him.
At the man who had started as a stranger beside me in a car.
The man who had somehow become someone I looked forward to seeing.
“I’d like that.”
His smile changed.
Not the polite smile of a businessman.
A real one.
“Good.”
—
Dinner with Tristan was nothing like I expected.
I imagined expensive restaurants with impossible reservations and people watching us from every corner.
Instead, he took me to a small family-owned restaurant tucked away on a quiet street.
The kind of place where the owner greeted regular customers by name.
“The food here is better than anywhere else,” Tristan explained.
