Free Daisy's Choice (A Tale of Three Hearts) by Sienna Mynx Page B

grinning.
     
    “ I like the lobster tail. You should’ve tried it.”
     
    Pete pointed his knife at the small square of meat that was once a twenty-two ounce porterhouse. “No, you need to taste this.”
     
    Nina sat back, shaking her head. She watched him swirl it up in steak sauce, drowning out all the natural flavors. “No thanks, Pete. I—”
     
    He held out the fork, the block of meat dripping with brown sauce. A lopsided grin on his face revealed the many beers he ordered. She playfully rolled her eyes but opened her mouth to the offering and drew the meat off his fork with a teasingly slow pull, sauce dropping to her bottom lip.
     
    “ Let me get that!”
     
    Before she could wipe, he reached and pulled her face close, kissing her and licking her lips clean. Nina smiled, chewing and enjoying his offering. All of a sudden, the steak was the best part of her meal.
     
    “ You like?”
     
    “ I like.”
     
    He nodded and sat back, staring at her.
     
    “ Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked nervously, touching her short cropped hair. She was thinking of growing it back. Men preferred hair. If she was to base Pete's tastes on Daisy Johnson, she was sure he preferred longer hair.
     
    “ I like your hair short,” Pete said. He stared at her and she nervously smoothed down her nape.
     
    “ You do?”
     
    “ It was the first thing I noticed. How sexy it makes you. I like the way it feels too,” he smirked.
     
    She felt a wave of flutters like a hundred butterflies trapped in her heart. He complimented her every now and then, mostly before and after sex. Never like this. “Thanks, Pete.”
     
    “ About earlier.”
     
    “ Forget about it,” she shrugged. The last thing she wanted was to ruin their night with talk of what happened at the funeral.
     
    “ No, Nina. Let’s talk about it. That was him. You know that, don’t you?”
     
    She nodded, picking at the opening of her baked potato. Her lashes lifted and her heart remained heavy with dread with a touch of foreboding. She couldn’t hide it, and she knew he saw through her bravado when she spoke. “Yeah, I know. You two were fighting over Daisy.”
     
    “ It wasn’t just Daisy. I realize that now. When all the stuff happened in Vegas, Aiden Keane took pleasure in grinding my pride to dust. I’ve been trying to get it back ever since. When I saw how ballsy he was, enough to show up at the funeral, I realized that Daisy was right to stay away. It's time for me to stop living in the past.”
     
    Nina tried not to smile. She couldn’t help it. Her love for Pete was apparent all the way back to second grade. It was difficult not being noticed by someone so handsome. It was even harder when the cute boy became your hero, especially a girl who wore glasses at an early age and was ignored mostly by others. Kids used to snatch them from her face and hide them. There was no limit to their meanness. But Pete caught the big fourth graders teasing her. They circled her, holding the glasses up above her reach. She cried and begged for them to stop.
     
    Pete, only in the second grade, came over and pushed the biggest boy. He just pushed him with all his might. No one messed with the Doyle’s. His brothers would kick their asses. The fourth grader tossed the glasses and took off. Pete picked them up, cleaned them on his shirt, and gave them back to her. When she smiled and put them on her face, he pushed her down to the ground and ran the other way. Now that was love.
     
    Tonight he wore a similar smile at dinner. It drew her back from her thoughts. Nina focused. Pete’s mouth was moving. He was saying something about second chances. He poured out his heart about how he knew she was the one. She was floating on a natural buzz, drifting from her seat, hovering in the clouds. Immediately, her heart took a surge of love over the words she waited patiently to hear. It was like she was locked in some kind of time bubble; trapped in that