he sincerely advocated but hardly ever did. The closest he came was to urge his patients to do it. “Or take in the beauty that’s around them.” He was looking directly at her as he said it. Her cheeks began to take on color again. “You’re growing pinker,” he commented, amused.
She’d give anything for a good, solid tan right now, but given the weather, it would have been rust, not tan. “The room is warm,” Bethany murmured. She lowered her eyes. “If that compliment was intended for me, Peter, you might think about having your eyes checked.”
This wasn’t false modesty, he realized. She really meant what she was saying. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful before?”
Not once, she thought. Not ever. And when she was growing up, the exact opposite was true. Kids were cruel and her parents didn’t provide a haven for her where she could lick her wounds. Looking back, she supposed that was a toughening device on its own.
Since he was obviously waiting for an answer, she told him the truth. “You’d be the first.”
He couldn’t believe that. “Where did you grow up, in a swamp covered with mud?”
The sincerity in his voice delighted her. “No, just with people who had twenty-twenty vision.” Her parents, especially her mother, could be trusted to point out her flaws, but never comment on any of her attributes. They expected her to be a high achiever. Anything less was not acceptable. And there was always Belinda to live up to. “Unlike yours.” A self-deprecating smile played on her lips. “I was the original ugly duckling.”
“You remember the rest of the story, don’t you?” he asked. “That so-called ugly duckling became a beautiful swan.”
She shrugged, looking away. “I haven’t reached that part yet.”
If asked, he would have said that Bethany Holloway did not lack confidence, but obviously, he would have been wrong. “Not only have you reached it, Bethany, you’ve surpassed it.”
When she looked at him, there was something enigmatic in his expression. “What?”
Peter was silent for a long moment, debating whether or not to say anything or just shrug away her question. But she’d taken the first step and held her hand out in a truce. He couldn’t be any less of a man than she was.
The second he’d thought it, he realized that it was a sexist thought, but he hadn’t meant it that way. “It’s my turn to offer you an apology.”
“For what?” Was he apologizing for walking out on her in the cafeteria, or something else?
“For thinking you were like someone else I once knew.” Maybe that was why he’d reacted so strongly against her when she put forth her arguments. “You’re not a thing like her.”
“Like who?” she asked. “And why do you think would I be insulted if I’d known you were comparing us?”
“Lisa Dandridge.” He saw the next question in her eyes. “Someone I once knew in college. Someone who didn’t turn out to be who I thought she was. At first glance, you look a lot like her.”
There were things he wasn’t saying. Before she got carried away, reading between the lines, she decided to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. “This Lisa, was she important to you?”
“For a while, yes.” For a while, she was the moon and the stars to him. Until he’d suffered an eclipse.
“How important?” she pressed.
Well, he’d started this. He had no one to blame but himself for her question. To withdraw now wouldn’t be fair. “Engaged-to-be-married important.”
Bethany fell silent for a second. She hadn’t expected him to say that. “Oh.” There was no follow-up from him. “Well, don’t leave me hanging,” she prompted. “What happened?”
“We got unengaged.”
She hadn’t gotten to where she was by being a shrinking violet. “And that happened because …?”
Because. It was an all-purpose word that covered so much territory. “Because she found someone else.”
Her mouth dropped open. “She cheated on you?” How could any woman in her right mind cheat on someone who looked like Peter? Who was obviously as decent as he was? There was no doubt in her mind that he was better off without this Lisa person.
He’d never known whether Lisa had slept with Steven Wilson, the medical student she’d left him for. He never wanted to let his thoughts go that far. It was enough that she’d left him for the reasons she’d cited.
He shrugged, looking out the window. More snow. Just what they needed, he thought. “We never got into that.”
“Then why did you two break up?” He struck her as the type of man who didn’t easily give up on a woman he professed to love.
Her question brought the past vividly back to him. “The ‘other man’ had ‘more potential’ than I had. He was going into his father’s prestigious practice in New York and I was coming back here, to work with my father in a place that was far less lucrative and upscale. Lisa didn’t see herself living in Walnut River. She saw herself shopping on Fifth Avenue.”
“What an awful woman.” The words just came out before she could stop them.
“No, Lisa just knew her limitations. Knew what would make her happy. And obviously, it wasn’t going to be me.”
Bethany frowned. “Well, you were better off without someone like that.” She paused, thinking. “And you think I look like her?”
Peter laughed softly. “At first glance, perhaps. But you’re far more beautiful than she ever was.”
Bethany felt her breath backing up in her lungs. “Really?” she whispered.
“Really.”
He was looking at her lips. She felt herself getting warm again. “I think I’d better get back to my office,” she murmured.
He nodded. “Maybe you’d better do that,” he agreed. Before he went with the demands inside him that were beginning to grow insistent. “And thanks for the wine. I’ll save it until I have something to celebrate.” He looked at her as she edged her way to the door. “Maybe we’ll even share it together.”
He was referring to the board’s vote regarding the possible takeover. Did he think because she’d brought him a peace offering that she was throwing her vote in with his? Or was that his way of saying he might reconsider his own stand?
She didn’t want to ask and risk spoiling the moment. So she inclined her head in agreement. “Maybe we will,” she agreed as she slipped out.
He found himself smiling as he returned to his files.
Chapter Eleven
Though she told herself she wasn’t, the truth of it was Bethany was looking forward to the fundraiser. However, none of the reasons she’d cited to herself regarding why
