around patients and staff in her path. Tripp believed a man could tell a lot about a woman by the way she walked. Amber Colton had the walk of a woman accustomed to getting a second look. She wasn’t oblivious to it, but she didn’t seem affected by it, either.
She was wearing another pantsuit, this one white. The top was sleeveless and cinched in at the waist. Her pants were loose in the legs and just snug enough at the hips to lead a man’s imagination into dangerous territory. His blood heated, and he scowled.
She was nothing like the kind of woman he needed to look for. She spelled trouble. There was no way around it. But he owed her an apology, and by God, she was going to have one.
“Amber, wait!” It came out as little more than a croak; it was no wonder she didn’t hear him.
He lengthened his stride and increased his pace. This time, he kept his eyes trained on something other than the sway of her hips. He focused on the square leather bag hanging from her left shoulder. It swung with every step she took. Every now and then, it moved enough to give him a glimpse of a stuffed dog that was tucked beneath her arm.
She passed the elevator and had almost reached the stairway when he tried again. “Amber, wait!”
This time his voice reached her. She looked over her shoulder and stopped suddenly. He noticed she didn’t smile.
“You’re not an easy woman to catch up to. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
She glanced at the plush, stuffed brown puppy beneath her arm. “I want to get this up to P.J.’s room. I’m already late for an appointment with the head of charity affairs.” She didn’t add, “So if you have something to say, say it.” She didn’t have to. The lift of her eyebrows was a prod if he’d ever seen one.
Tripp wasn’t accustomed to being prodded.
“What is it? What are you thinking?” she asked.
He wondered if women had any idea how much men squirmed when asked that question. He blurted the first thing that came to mind. “That you’re a bossy woman.”
She flushed. And he gave himself a mental shake. He’d angered her again. Or perhaps she was still angry from the day before.
With a lift of her chin, she met his gaze straight on. “You don’t like the way I look, the way I act, the way I talk. What is your problem, Tripp?”
He held up one hand. “I don’t think bossiness is necessarily a bad trait. I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“You could have fooled me.”
She was no shrinking violet, that was for sure. Tripp admired her for it. If she’d been afraid of her own shadow, she never would have had the courage to stand up to her father on his behalf all those years ago. “I didn’t stop you to take another cheap shot at you. I stopped you to apologize. For yesterday. And in answer to your earlier question, if I have a problem with you, it’s not your fault.”
Amber stared up at Tripp. His shirt and tie were black, his skin a shade of brown that didn’t need sunscreen. He was clean-shaven this morning and handsome beyond belief. And it ticked her off that she’d noticed. He’d just admitted that his earlier jabs had been cheap shots. In the same breath, he’d admitted that he did, indeed, have a problem with her.
“Whose fault is it then, Tripp? This problem you have with me.” Her breath caught in her throat, making her voice sound breathless to her own ears. That ticked her off, too.
“I’m sorry about insulting you yesterday. You didn’t ask to be born into a wealthy family any more than I asked to be born into a screwed-up one. It’s just that you rich people have no idea how intimidating you are to the rest of us.”
He called that an apology? “I…you…” Amber was never at a loss for words, yet here she was, stammering for the second time in a matter of days.
She didn’t try to speak again until she’d made certain she’d put one entire thought in order. “Rich families can be just as dysfunctional as poor ones.”
They were arguing about whose family was more dysfunctional? The conversation had sunk to a new low.
He shrugged in a noncommittal, infuriating manner.
“I intimidate you?” she asked.
He released the clasp on his watch, fiddled with it, tightened it again. “Forget it, okay?”
Perhaps she should have let it go, as he’d asked, but that wasn’t her style. Yesterday, when she’d seen him again out in the garden at Hacienda de Alegria, she’d felt a connection to him. Ever since her mother had changed and her father had grown distant and her family had basically fallen apart, she’d feared that nobody would ever love her for herself again. Looking at the lines around Tripp’s eyes and the furrow between his brows today, she believed it was possible that she’d been wrong. She felt on the brink of understanding something important about him.
Forget it? Now why on earth would she do that? “How do I intimidate you?”
Releasing most of his breath in one noisy stream, he said, “You’re brilliant, you’re witty, you’re rich. You received your MBA from Radcliffe.”
“And you’re a doctor, for heaven’s sake.”
Luckily, the corridor was empty, so no one heard him raise his voice as he said, “I’m a struggling, part-Latino, mostly broke doctor who had to work my butt off to make it through med school.”
“I distinctly recall my father saying that you graduated at the top of your class.”
“The top of my class would have been the bottom of yours.”
“I highly doubt that.”
He made no reply. So she tried another tactic. “I intimidate you. That’s the problem,” she said, persisting. “That’s what’s keeping us from being friends. Let’s see. How could we fix it?”
“I don’t think we—”
“When I was in grade school and had to give a speech, I used to imagine my classmates in their underwear. Maybe you should try it.”
His eyes darkened, his lids lowering slightly.
She ducked her head, pulled a face, and smiled. “On second thought, that’s probably not a good idea.”
It occurred to Tripp that he was staring. He couldn’t help it. The warmth in Amber’s smile got to him. He couldn’t help that, either. He ran a hand over his hair, skimming the rubber band that secured the stubby ponytail at the back of his neck. He’d kept his ponytail to remind him of where he’d been, and where he was going.
“Coop read me the riot act when he discovered I’d turned down your offer. But you’re right. This isn’t a good idea. None of it.” Not what was in his imagination, not what was coursing through his body. “If I need a woman, it’s one who shares my background, my heritage. And I don’t need anybody’s pity.”
Her face fell, a bleak expression settling where her humor had been. She took a backward step. An instant later her chin came up, and her voice rose. “Pity?
