As I exited Berlin Airport, the first thing to catch my eye was a tall, dark-haired man holding a huge bouquet of roses. When he found me in the crowd, a million-dollar smile lit up his face. Carl. I blinked, taking in how his mussed hair countered his expensive suit perfectly, giving him a roguish quality. He had texted me to ask when I got back but hadn’t mentioned coming to meet me.
As I met his emerald eyes, I couldn’t help but be dazzled by the desire in them. His lips dipped down, and he planted a lingering kiss on mine. “God, I missed you,” he whispered, eliciting a smile from me.
“I was only gone a week,” I said, taking in the massive bunch of flowers in his arms. “These must have cost a fortune. You shouldn’t have,” I told him, even as I enjoyed the heady perfume that wafted around me as he gifted them to me.
“I told you, I missed you,” he said, stealing another kiss from me before taking my trolley bag and packing it into the boot.
Opening the passenger door, he helped me in. As he got in and pulled out, he asked, “So, how was Seattle? Was it a supplier you were meeting?”
I often went away to meet a new supplier for my design business, so it was a natural assumption for him to make. Other than the text I’d sent about when I was getting back, Carl and I hadn’t talked since he’d last called me… My heart quickened as I remembered again what Carl had suggested over the phone then: it was time to get a hotel room together, time to take things to the next level in our relationship.
I tamped down the fluttering feeling in my stomach. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do about his suggestion. Instead, I focused on the conversation we were having now and answered as honestly as I could, “No. I went to visit my dad, actually. He lives in the city still.”
Carl and I hadn’t spoken much about our families. He knew I was from Seattle, while I knew he was originally from Brussels. We hadn’t gotten to the stage of talking about meeting parents and the like.