Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy. Kelly Hunter

had probably found it excruciating.

      ‘Reckon I can find my own way to Chloe’s apartment if you’d rather go with Nico,’ he told the boy, offhand.

      ‘He wouldn’t want me around,’ mumbled Sam.

      Pete shrugged. ‘I say he would. Matter of fact I think it’d mean a lot to him if you helped him pick those flowers for Chloe.’

      Sam slanted him a gaze. ‘You don’t know that.’

      ‘You’re right, I don’t. But that’s what I think.’

      Sam stared at him, his face a study of indecision as hope warred with fear. And then the boy was racing after Nico, falling into step beside him and shoving his hands in his pockets for good measure. Not a word passed between them but Nico slowed to accommodate the boy and the shadow of a smile flitted across the kid’s face.

      ‘Guess I was right,’ he murmured, and, leaving them to the choosing of flowers and the careful cutting of stems, he turned on his heel and headed for Chloe’s.

      ‘Sam and Nico will be along soon,’ he told Chloe when she opened the door to him. ‘Thanks for the dinner invite.’

      ‘What are they doing?’ Chloe wanted to know.

      ‘Just some business they had to take care of.’

      ‘What kind of business?’

      ‘Their business,’ he said with a grin. ‘Have a little faith, Chloe. Alternatively, have a glass of wine. You look like you could use one.’ He handed her the half-full bottle the waiter had recorked for them at the taverna. ‘From Nico. I’d have bought some too only no one lets me buy alcohol around here.’

      Chloe smirked. ‘So I’ve heard. The general consensus is that you’re quite forward enough without it. Come through.’ Stepping aside, she gestured for him to enter.

      Serena was setting the table when he entered the kitchen and Pete felt something shift and fall gently into place at the sight of her performing that simple task. Mealtimes and the setting of the dinner table had been important to his family too, once upon a time. Before his mother had died. Before his father had fallen apart, leaving Jake, and him as next eldest, to step in and make sure that clothes got washed and people got fed. He’d been sixteen at the time, Jake had been eighteen, and they’d managed well enough. Managed just fine, considering …

      But food had generally made it to a person’s stomach directly from the fridge or by way of the kitchen counter. Food had rarely stopped by the dinner table en route. Not his choice. No one’s choice really. That was just the way things had shaken down.

      He’d grown used to eating meals on the run. To loading up a food tray in a Navy mess hall, or stopping for take-away on the way home from work. Food was fuel, no need to celebrate the eating of it.

      Maybe that was why the simple act of Serena laying knives and forks on the table cut at him so deeply, reminding him of his mother and of family the way it should be.

      Maybe that was why he crossed over to the domestic goddess, set his palms to her face and touched his lips to hers for a kiss that spoke of tenderness, and thanks, and a moment in time he wanted to cherish.

      Serena’s eyes fluttered closed and the cutlery she’d been holding clattered to the table as Pete’s lips met hers. There was passion in his kiss; there always was. A lick of heat and a dash of recklessness that called to her and made her tremble. But this time his passion was tempered with sweetness and a longing she’d never felt from him before. This wasn’t a hello kiss. It wasn’t seduction.

      This kiss was all about coming home.

      ‘What was that for?’ she said shakily when he finally released her.

      ‘Would you believe for setting the dinner table?’

      ‘Are you serious?’

      He sent her his charming, reckless smile. ‘Maybe.’

      She narrowed her eyes, mulled over his words and cursed him for being so much more than she wanted him to be. ‘You love the idea of coming home to this every night, don’t you? Coming home to family. You’re not a carefree playboy at all. You’re a fraud!’

      ‘Only lately. Sorry I interrupted.’ He picked up the cutlery and dumped it back in her hand. ‘Feel free to continue. You looked like you were enjoying it and Lord knows I’ll enjoy watching you.’

      ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a career woman.’

      His smile deepened. ‘I know that.’

      ‘Guess you’re not the only fraud around here,’ Chloe murmured to him as she handed him a glass of wine. Serena opened her mouth to protest, Chloe raised a delicate eyebrow and shoved a glass of wine in her free hand too. ‘Watch her deny it,’ she said to Pete.

      ‘Just because I don’t mind setting a dinner table doesn’t mean I want a life of domestic servitude,’ she muttered loftily, taking a sip of her wine before putting it down and carrying on with the task of laying out the cutlery.

      ‘Just because I like watching you set a dinner table doesn’t mean you couldn’t chase your chosen career.’ He leaned forward, battle ready, a blue-eyed black-haired thief of hearts who could have charmed the moon down from the sky if he put his mind to it. ‘I’m quite capable of setting a table myself. Or not at all if it comes to that.’

      ‘You were right,’ Chloe told her from the counter, her movements deft and practised as she swiftly uncorked another bottle of wine. ‘Standing here listening to you two argue about a simple everyday task that takes about two minutes is so much better than standing here brooding.’

      Sam and Nico arrived not long after that, the latter with pink roses, white daisies and green ferny things in hand. ‘Pretty,’ said Serena as Nico handed them over to a suddenly tongue-tied Chloe. ‘A man who can find flowers like that at this time of night is both romantic and resourceful.’

      ‘Although not entirely discreet,’ murmured Pete.

      ‘He doesn’t need to be discreet,’ countered Serena. ‘His intentions are pure.’

      ‘Not that pure,’ said Nico.

      ‘What about honourable?’ said Pete.

      ‘They’re mostly honourable,’ said Nico.

      Chloe glared at them both. ‘Do you mind? There’s a child present.’

      Sam rolled his eyes, Pete grinned his sympathy. ‘I just figured Sam should probably know the difference between courtship and seduction too. You know … for future reference. At first I thought it had something to do with speed, seduction being the faster of the two methods of wooing a woman. Then I got to thinking it might have something to do with a man’s intentions, but, no, man’s intentions are a grey area. Who in their right mind would base it on that?’

      ‘A woman might,’ said Nico. ‘They get some strange notions in their heads at times.’

      ‘You’re right,’ said Pete.

      ‘Aren’t they sweet?’ said Serena. ‘All that brawn, so little brain. Puts me in mind of Winnie the Pooh. He was a bear of little brain too.’

      ‘But cuddly,’ said Pete. ‘Generally happy with his lot.’

      ‘Well, that rules you out, flyboy,’ she murmured, handing him a plate of food. ‘You can’t even find your lot.’

      She was right. But it still stung. ‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ he said defensively.

      ‘It’s in your folder,’ she said dryly. ‘Three pages in.’

      Pete unwound over the course of the dinner, everyone did, with the help of Chloe’s excellent cooking and hospitality skills and Serena’s knack for turning conversation into entertainment. Caring bubbled