looked down at the glasses in his hand as if he’d forgotten he’d taken them off and still had them. He met her gaze and sighed dramatically.
“Okay, you can have them back. But only because it’s sunny and squinting will give you crow’s-feet around those beautiful eyes. Certainly not because the prettiest girl on campus has anything to hide.”
“You are so lying,” she said, shaking her head with a tentative smile.
A sudden frown chased the humor from his eyes and he looked almost nervous as he ran his fingers through his short, thick hair.
She put her hand on his arm. “You look like someone made a kite tail out of your favorite tie. That was a joke. Where’s your sense of humor?”
“Joke. Right. I knew that.”
Nate breathed a sigh of relief when she showed no signs of recognition. Although she was right about him lying—a lie of omission. But a lie by any other name was still a lie. He’d only told her his name, not who he really was. He’d never expected to see her again, not in the flesh. Pictures of her in magazines had been his only contact since college and all he could ever hope for. But a little over a year ago he’d lost track of her. Obviously something traumatic had happened to take her out of circulation.
She put her sunglasses back on. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask how it happened.”
He knew “it” was some kind of accident. “Do you want to tell me?”
“No.”
The response was succinct, decisive and unequivocal. He slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “That’s good enough for me.”
If anyone could understand not wanting to discuss scars, it was Nate. And not all of them had been on his face. Severe teenage acne had left his face badly marked. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, his nose was broken in a college fight. Those were the days when everyone made fun of his “crater face.” Everyone but Katie. She’d hung out at his fraternity house with her boyfriend. The jerk never passed up an opportunity to pick on the brainer geek who desperately tried to avoid him and fade into the woodwork.
Every time Nate was the butt of another joke, Katie made it a point to find something nice to say to him, and her sweetness managed to neutralize the filth from whatever dirt was shoveled his way. He would always be grateful to her for that. He wasn’t lying about her character. To him, her heart and soul had always been even more beautiful than her face. And that was saying something because he also hadn’t been lying about her being the prettiest girl on campus. She’d always wanted to be a model. He wondered about the state of her career now.
In college, the few who were acquainted with Nate Williams knew him as Wide Load Willie or Zit-face Willie. At the time, the nicknames were humiliating and he’d never expected to be grateful for them. But he was now. Because Katie didn’t know him by his given name. When he’d finally joined a top legal defense firm and started making some money, he’d gone to a plastic surgeon who specialized in scar removal, had his nose fixed and hired a personal trainer to get him in shape. There was nothing left of Wide Load Willie and he no longer faded into the woodwork. Improved appearance had given him the confidence to take center stage in his career.
But when he’d introduced himself a few moments ago, there was no sign of recognition. Thank God. He didn’t want her to remember the flabby-freak-with-no-friends he’d been. Today, when she’d finally looked at him, she liked what she saw. Since he’d never expected to see an expression of admiration in Katie Price’s eyes, he liked that she liked him. And he didn’t care if he was acting like a hormone-riddled high schooler.
He’d come a long way since college. He was a criminal defense attorney now, and his services were available to whoever could pay his price. But he didn’t want to share that with her, either. It had given him the means to fix what was wrong with him on the outside, but lately he’d begun to wonder if the profession wasn’t creating new, worse flaws on the inside. Many of his clients had little or no decency, honesty, integrity or morality. His grandmother used to say people are a product of their environment. What did that make him?
Katie snapped her fingers. “Earth to Nate? You drifted off. Stay with me here.”
He shook his head, scattering the disturbing images—past and present. “Sorry. I have a bad habit of getting lost in my own thoughts. It’s trademark brainer geek. You may remember.”
Although he prayed she wouldn’t.
She tapped her lip. “I can’t picture you that way. In fact, I’m getting nothing from my memory banks.”
His banks were overflowing with recollections. And the woman before him still had the same thick, silky dark brown hair. She was small for a model; the top of her head came about to his shoulder. Always thin, the sleeveless blouse and ankle-length skirt she wore made her look more fragile than he remembered. And when she shifted her weight from her left leg to her right, he didn’t miss the wince—or the way she pressed a hand to the small of her back as if she was uncomfortable. He frowned. She didn’t want to talk about it. But he was interested in everything about her, including what had taken the sparkle from hazel eyes he remembered flashing with energy and life.
He might be having a crisis of conscience about being a defense attorney, but he was damn good at it. And he didn’t get where he was by refusing to ask the tough questions. He would find out about her—what she had done in the last ten years, and what she was doing now. But he would sit her down for the cross-examination.
He pointed down the path. “There’s a cozy little bench just around the bend. It could take a while for us to catch up and you’d be doing an old man a favor if you’d sit down with me.”
She hesitated a moment as she studied him. Finally she nodded and a small smile turned up the corners of her full lips as she said, “Old my eye.”
He released a long breath and realized how much he hadn’t wanted her to say no.
They walked slowly along the picturesque, landscaped cobblestone path. Manicured bushes and pink, purple and yellow flowers lined the way and swayed in the afternoon breeze. Stately old trees shaded them when they were settled on the bench, and he casually rested his arm along the back, his fingers just an inch from her shoulder.
“So you’re a lawyer?” she asked, shifting slightly away from him.
The question drew his gaze to hers. Did she remember something about him? Maybe something she’d seen on the news? But her look was curious, if a little guarded.
“What makes you think that?”
“It was the prelaw information that gave me a clue.”
“Oh,” he said sheepishly. He wasn’t normally such a dimwit. The power surge from being this close to her must be frying his brain. “Right. Yes. I’m a defense attorney.”
“Must be nice to set a goal and reach it,” she said wistfully.
“I suppose.”
He’d always wanted to go into law, although he hadn’t exactly followed the path he’d intended. But it wasn’t himself he wanted to talk about. The breeze stirred the leaves overhead and he watched the dappled shadows dance over the lovely curve of her cheek and jaw. The scarred side of her face was in shadow, but it didn’t
