her sentence for her. He walked over to the toaster oven, opened the door, grimaced at the burned mess inside. “Sure you did. In more ways than one. What was that?”
“Toast.”
His eyes widened. “That was toast?”
At his question, something inside Sarah snapped.
“Yes, it was. Toast. Toast that was going to be my dinner, because I was hungry and tired and... Don’t you judge me...you...you...” She searched for a derogatory name, sure there were thousands just on the tip of her tongue. Unfortunately, none sprang forth.
That’s when the day’s events took their toll and she did something totally out of character.
She watered up and fought tears.
Uh-uh. No way.
She was not going to cry in front of him.
Not now. Not ever.
She was not going to cry period.
She did not cry and most certainly if she ever did it wouldn’t be over burnt toast.
“Sarah?” His tone was no longer teasing, but showed concern. “Are you okay?”
Embarrassed, exhausted, ready to call it a night, she took a deep breath. “I’m tired and hungry and my dinner is chunks of charcoal and you annoy me. No big deal.”
He eyed her way too closely for comfort.
“You were really going to have toast for dinner?” he asked, ignoring the rest of her comment.
“I was going to spread hummus on it,” she defended. She’d showered, thrown on the baggy sweats, and had planned to eat a quick bite and crash. She did the same thing quite frequently on the days she worked the emergency room and got held up beyond her normal twelve-hour shift.
His nose curled again. “Hummus and toast. No, thank you.”
“For your information, I like hummus and toast.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Your hummus and toast must be better than any I’ve ever had.”
“It’s good. Stick around and you can taste for yourself.” Sarah heard herself say the words, but had no clue where they came from. Not in a million years would she invite her neighbor who started his days with a different woman every day of the week to stay for dinner.
Good grief. What would he think?
He had come to turn off her alarm, so she couldn’t really retract her invitation, could she? Not without seeming ungrateful and rude.
“Tempting,” he ventured, not sounding anything of the sort. “But I have a better offer.”
Of course he did. Women probably lined up to cook gourmet meals for him. And she’d heard first-hand that morning what else they offered.
“Why don’t you come to my place and let me cook for you?”
Surprised, she opened her mouth to refuse, but he continued speaking before she could.
“Before you say no, the food is already in the oven, the wine is chilled, and I have a view that’s even more amazing than yours.”
He’d noticed her view? He had food in the oven? Why did he have wine chilling?
Then it hit her.
“I pulled you away from company, didn’t I?”
He frowned. “No. Why would you think that?”
Because his apartment door was like a model runway exit, always with some beautiful woman walking through it.
But his look said he’d been alone.
“You’re cooking for just yourself?”
“I like to eat.”
Wondering at his apartment view, at what he’d cooked and how edible it was, she eyed him suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just offering to share my dinner.” He glanced toward the burned remains of her toast. “And looking out for my own interests of having an uninterrupted meal, of course. I don’t want you attempting more toast and setting your alarm off again.”
“Ha-ha. Real funny. The only reason my toast caught fire is because I was so tired.” And had been distracted by thoughts of him, but she wasn’t telling him that part.
“Fine. You can take a cat nap on my sofa while I finish up dinner.”
As if.
“What are you serving?” she ventured out of curiosity, but with no intention of even entertaining the possibility of actually agreeing to have dinner with him. “I might prefer burnt toast.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You won’t. We’re having Chicken Marsala served on a bed of angel-hair pasta, steamed asparagus with a light butter sauce, and a red wine because I prefer red to white.”
Of course he did. Red stood for passion and white was just bland, right? Jude was a red kind of guy.
She blinked. “Are you for real?”
“You could pinch me and find out.”
His eyes twinkled with that sparkle that had her heart doing funny floppy things in her chest.
“You wish.”
* * *
Jude did wish.
As crazy as the thought was, he wanted Sarah to pinch him.
Not to see if he was real, but to wake him up because he was moving in some type of haze.
What was he thinking, inviting her to dinner? Not about how beautiful she was without her thick glasses blocking her face.
She was, but he was being a good neighbor.
That was it.
He wasn’t inviting her to his place for anything more.
Even if she did have gorgeous eyes, amazing cheekbones, and full, pink, kissable lips.
“Is that how you lure women to your apartment? With promises of feeding them?”
“Something like that,” he answered, wondering why she thought the worst of him when it came to women.
Maybe through her eyes, there were too many women, and maybe, if he was honest, he’d admit to it as well.
But he never deceived any of them or made promises he had no intention of keeping. They all knew the score. He was a one-night-stand kind of guy and the women he invited to his apartment came for one reason.
It wasn’t
