polished manners of gallant Daniel Keegan,” she said softly.
“Is that a roundabout way of saying I’m old-fashioned?” His own friends called him stuffy. To a free spirit like Mia, he must seem downright rigid.
“It’s a roundabout way of saying I’m surprised you’re voluntarily spending time with me. I’m not known for demure refinement...as you pointed out more than once when we went to school together.”
He flinched. In retrospect, he’d been a bit of a self-righteous ass when he was younger. Luckily, the longer he’d been out of his parents’ house, the less he judged others through the Keegans’ narrow worldview. When he’d met Mia, he’d found her both fascinating and discomfiting. He’d been raised not to steal attention from his brothers, who were clearly Going Places, raised never to do anything controversial or scandalous. His job was to blend, to be polite and unobtrusively charming.
Mia Hayes did not blend.
When he climbed in on his side of the car, he told her, “I’m sorry if there were times I was a sanctimonious jerk.”
“If?” But she smiled, looking pleased by his apology.
“You were so different from most of the girls I’d known.” And not because he’d rarely seen tattoos and turquoise-streaked hair at his parents’ country club. “You seemed to thrive on friction.”
“Under the right circumstances, friction can feel pretty damn good.”
His brain lit up with images of bodies rubbing against each other, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say to hell with the restaurant and ask her back to his apartment.
But then she instructed, “Make a left at the intersection,” and he shifted his focus to driving. More or less.
As they waited at the red light, he told her, “I know we were never friends in college, but I did admire you. I respected your smarts—”
“Even when I got a higher grade than you did?” she needled.
The gallant response would be yes. “On two projects, Hayes.” He’d busted his ass to earn an impressive GPA. “As I recall, I finished with a higher final score in both classes we had together.”
“Because you were teacher’s pet, dutifully regurgitating what the professors told us instead of exploring more divisive interpretations.”
“Arguing a premise out of sheer reflex is habit, not proof of intellectual superiority.”
“And I suppose when you grade essays and exams, you reward students who mindlessly parrot what you’ve told them?”
“Of course,” he snapped. “For I am an academic god with no patience for mere mortals who think for themselves.”
She laughed aloud at his sarcasm. “Good thing we’re mature now and finally get along, huh?”
He couldn’t believe that she’d provoked him so easily, yet sparring with her was perversely refreshing. “I was trying to pay you a compliment.”
“Next time, I’ll handle the flattery with more grace.”
“Pfft. What makes you think there will be a next time?”
“Run out of nice things to say about me already, Professor?”
You’re audacious and funny and so fucking sexy I can barely keep my eyes on the road. “I don’t think ‘nice’ applies to you.”
“You’d be surprised.” Her grin was wicked. “I can be very nice when I want to be.”
When she smiled like that, there wasn’t enough air in the car. His chest constricted. His body tightened with lust, and he gripped the steering wheel harder to keep from reaching for her. If he could’ve found his voice in that moment, he would have asked what it took to coax her to be nice.
But he was starting to think maybe nice wasn’t what he wanted.
* * *
DINNER WITH DANIEL was a revelation. Mia couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun on a date. Is this a date? she asked herself as the waitress set dessert on the table. Daniel’s explanation for asking her out hadn’t been a burning desire for her company, simply that he needed “a change.”
Still, his impersonal reasoning aside, their evening had the hallmarks of a date. Since Daniel had never been to the restaurant before, they’d decided to sample tapas plates instead of ordering entrées, sliding close together in the curved booth to share food. While enjoying yucca fries, miniature empanadas and grilled beef served with flavorful chimichurri, they’d had a lively conversation, discussing literature-based movies and arguing about which format was more successful for each story. Most date-like of all, there was palpable chemistry between her and her smoking-hot companion.
Daniel might spend a lot of his time teaching classes and publishing academic papers, but it was clear from his muscular build and lithe grace that he didn’t overlook physical recreation. He’d mentioned weekly basketball games with Eli and jogging the paths around the Chattahoochee River in warmer weather. It was difficult to decide which was sexier—his toned, masculine body or the gleam in his silvery eyes when he teased her. She was discovering he had a much better sense of humor than she would’ve anticipated. Daniel Keegan in a playful mood was nearly irresistible.
Mia tried not to get bogged down by regrets, but for the first time she wondered what their earlier relationship would have been like if she hadn’t had a chip on her shoulder when they’d met. She’d gone off to college angry with her father and her stepmother, wounded at their lack of support when she’d needed it most and betrayed by their attempts to remake her in the image of her oh-so-proper stepsister. Never gonna happen.
“Hey.” Daniel lightly poked her shoulder. “Did I lose you somewhere? I could understand if I’d been droning on about Renaissance literature, but I was sharing a quality childhood anecdote from my limited supply. I can count on one hand the number of times my brothers and I indulged in humorous shenanigans.”
“Then we have that in common.”
“Really? I would have thought your youth was full of shenanigans.”
Far fewer than he imagined, and none with her stepsister. “Patience and I didn’t have a whimsical relationship.”
“Patience being your sister?” He reached for a chocolate-coated slice of plantain.
“Step. It was just me and Dad for years. He remarried the summer before I started high school, and, boom, suddenly I had an older sibling. We’re only a year apart in age, but Patience...” Mia couldn’t think of a way to describe her that didn’t sound petulant.
“Is she bossy? I have lifelong experience being the youngest sibling.”
“Patience is shy and soft-spoken. She wouldn’t be able to boss around the world’s most accommodating personal assistant, much less me. We couldn’t be less alike.” Much to their parents’ dismay.
Even now, years after the fact, the memory of her father’s words were a raw wound. I’m not saying
