‘Why do I feel like it’s my first date?’ Max felt so nervous he was sweating. This was not a feeling he was familiar with. He always had the confidence to face any task or person, but there was something about Celine that threw him off his game. It felt like this was one date he could not mess up because his life depended on it. ‘So how is your sister? Is she feeling any better?’ She asked when someone tapped her shoulder. ‘Celine, I saw you from the street. Why are you having lunch here? Does your lunch date know who you are? That you don’t eat at places like these?’ ‘At least if I was your lunch date, I would never have brought you here. It’s so dingy, and things look cheap.’ He swipes his finger on the table, coming up with nothing, but pretending there was dust on it, to show his disgust. Celine rolls her eyes. ‘Dante, nobody asked for your opinion. And this is my lunch date, not yours. You can leave.’ Dante is the son of one of the prominent families in San Diego. Plastered o

‘Hey, kids!’ Mr. Powell says from the open door. After a round of hugs, he told them that records from the kids in the orphanage before they assumed management was missing. ‘I asked them about all those records when we arrived, and they told us about a break-in years earlier. Those idiots trashed the whole place. Do you know what the biggest surprise was? The only thing the looters absconded with were records of all the kids living here. Since most of you guys have grown up and moved on, they never bothered to restore the missing data,’ he said. ‘I think the old caretakers should have fixed the records because there is always a chance that someone might return.‘Pa, were there any other pictures you could show us from before?’ Max asked hopefully. ‘Nah, but

‘These bozos can help you with that. I have no time right now,’ she said dismissively as she looked at her papers.Sebastian replied, ‘Oh, I had a meeting with someone at the Embarcadero yesterday and thought I’d drop by to see you guys - say hi.’ Max caught the intense look he gave her. ‘There was is no tamping down the intensity with this guy.’‘I remembered you cycled, so I was going to invite you to show me the trail near your area. It looked very scenic. I remember Max saying it circled a lake, and your social media was full of pictures of it. So I wanted to experience it firsthand. Will you give me a tour?’ he asked confidently.Max kept on texting Jeremy regarding their bet.

Every time he closes his eyes, he can see Celine’s teasing smile when they flirted that night. And then that guy Dante showed up the next day. It showed him she was no pushover. He liked that she was feisty and asked him to leave, which meant she had a fire in her, and he wanted to see it burn brighter. He wants to be the person who made her fire shine. ‘I wonder how she is in bed? I hope she’s as equally responsive.’ He was getting a hard-on just thinking about kissing her, having her in between the sheets, under hi--‘Sir, please return your seat and your tray back in its upright position. We are ready to land.’ The flight attendant interrupted Max’s sexy daydream, alerting him to how close he was to seeing the object of his fantasies. He adjusts himself before doing what the attendant instructed. He can’t scare his fellow passengers by sporting a boner.

Now she understood why the hostess bothered her. It was because Max was smiling at them as they walked toward him. Celine hoped his smile was only for her, and it seemed the hostess felt the same way. ‘Is she seriously competing with me?’She stared Max straight in the eye, testing to see if he was going to break contact and look at the blonde bombshell coming toward him, but he never strayed. He had passed her test. It seemed that he only had eyes for her. ‘For now.’ her evil conscience taunted her. ‘He’s only looking at you because of what you’re wearing.’She was wearing a simple dark blue A-line dress with butterfly sleeves and a deep V neckline that led down to gold buttons on the front of her dress and stopped at her knees. It would look simple if someone else wore it, but on Celine, Max thought she looked s