nodded. “Yeah. She might feel less threatened if there was another woman present. I’d rather not look like the big bad bully.”
“I couldn’t,” she said automatically.
“True. No one would ever mistake you for a bully.”
“No. I meant I couldn’t possibly go with you.”
He shook his head. “Technically, that’s not true. I’ll drive. All you have to do is sit in the passenger seat. We meet Sandra at the restaurant, order food and eat. That’s exceedingly doable.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Yeah.”
“Be serious, Nate.”
“I am. About needing some help.”
“Not mine. I’m probably the last person Sandra Westport wants to have lunch with.” Kathryn had turned down a request from the other woman, only a week or two ago. It was highly unlikely Nate would benefit by her presence at lunch.
“You’d really be doing me a big favor if you’d come along,” he insisted.
“What part of no don’t you understand?” she asked.
“The N and the O. I’m very fragile,” he teased.
There was nothing fragile about him, not in the way his shirt hugged his muscular biceps or the masculine way he filled out his jeans. But when she looked closer, for a split second, his eyes showed a hint of hurt. Then it was gone and she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. Just her imagination. She didn’t have the power to wound him. They didn’t know each other well enough. And why in the world would he even want to get to know her better when he could have his pick of perfect women? A man with his blow-in-my-ear-and-I’ll-follow-you-anywhere-good-looks would not be bothered by a rejection from someone who looked like her.
“Fragile my foot,” she blurted out. “This isn’t about you, Nate.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he asked, suddenly serious.
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“Then you’d be wrong. In spite of what you think, I’m not an insensitive jerk.”
“I don’t think that—”
“Obviously you do,” he interrupted. “In my own defense let me point out that I got it when you hid behind your sunglasses. I’m not so self-absorbed that I don’t get that you’ve been through something traumatic.”
“There’s no way you can understand what I’m feeling,” she retorted.
“There’s that jumping to conclusions thing again. How can you possibly know what I would or would not understand?”
“Come on. It’s not jumping to conclusions when the man looks like you.” She stared at him. “You belong in the sexiest lawyer section of People magazine’s sexiest man of the year issue. You couldn’t possibly know what it feels like to look in the mirror and know this is the best you’re ever going to look. You can’t understand what it feels like when people won’t look you in the eye because they see the scars and don’t know how to deal with it.”
He frowned. “This isn’t about other people. It’s about you, Katie. You can’t sit passively in a room. Life isn’t a spectator sport. It happens if you let it.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Nate. No one knows better than me that life happens. It happened all over my face and it isn’t pretty.”
“Now who’s twisting words?”
“I’m just saying, until you’ve walked in my shoes, don’t presume to know how I feel.”
“And I’m saying things aren’t always the way they seem. Have you ever heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
“That’s baloney.”
One eyebrow rose. “The Katie I knew wasn’t a glass-is-half-empty person.”
That arrow sliced clear to her soul and drew blood. “I resent that. It’s not pessimism, it’s realism.”
“You say tomato, I say toe-mah-toe. You say potato—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”
“No, for mine.”
He looked so sincere, and her steadfast resolve began to waver. It had all seemed so simple before he showed up in the flesh. He’d accepted her turndown; she was okay with that. But now, seeing all that attractive flesh, engaging in stimulating verbal sparring, she wasn’t sure about anything. Except that suddenly the loneliness she hadn’t even acknowledged loomed black and frightening. She hadn’t realized how isolated and alone she’d felt since her accident.
He was there and she found his larger-than-life personality so very appealing, so very difficult to resist. Even for her—the ice queen. But she knew not resisting was a prerequisite for disaster. If she made the mistake of letting him close, the ugliness from her past was certain to come out and she simply couldn’t bear that after working so hard to bury it.
“Look—” he ran his fingers through his hair “—all I’m trying to say is that you can’t stand at a fork in the road indefinitely. Sooner or later you’ll get run over.”
This time she couldn’t suppress a smile. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You do motivational speaking on the side.”
He grinned. “Busted.”
“I knew it.” That boyish expression combined with his square-jawed, lean good looks, and perseverance and genuine likability propelled her stomach into a triple backflip.
“Actually I’m just a hardworking attorney who’s only interested in motivating you to go out with me.” Again he twisted and clarified.
“I don’t know, Nate.”
“I do.” He reached out a hand, but didn’t touch her. “Look, Katie, whether you believe it or not, I know how to take no for an answer. But I hope I won’t have to.”
She shook her head. “I just can’t go to lunch with you and Sandra.”
“Okay. Then how about just me?”
“What? I thought you needed to try and get her to cut the professor some slack.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’ll see Sandra and try to get her to back off. Then we can have dinner tonight. Please?”
No was on the tip of her tongue, but Kathryn hadn’t counted on his ability to captivate her. Suddenly she was the one who didn’t understand the N and the O.
“All right. Dinner,” she said. “But, Nate, could we—”
“You order room service. I’ll be here about seven?”
She
