all the fault of a young chef named Sharon Wong. We dated each other for most of the last year in Singapore. She taught me everything I know.” He made a comical face. “Of course, that was only a small fraction of what she knows, but it was a start.”
A woman was behind it all. She should have known. But it gave her a jolt. Connor had never seemed to have a special woman in his life. Lots of women, but no one special. Had that changed?
“A chef. Great. I’m partial to chefs. What kind of cuisine?”
“She specializes in Mandarin Chinese but she mostly taught me French basics. She claims every chef needs French cooking as a standard, a baseline to launch from. Sort of like learning Calculus for science classes.”
She nodded. “That’s why it’s so important for Trini to go to the school she just left to attend. She’ll get a great grounding in the basics.”
He watched her for a moment, then asked, “Why didn’t you ever go there?”
She shrugged and stretched back against the pillows, beginning to feel her body relax at last. “I took classes locally, but nothing on that level.” Her smile was wistful. “Funny. I applied a few years ago. I got accepted on my first try. A scholarship and everything. But I didn’t get to go.”
“Why not?”
She gave him a bemused smile. “I married Brad instead.”
“Wow, that was a bad decision.” He looked pained at the thought. “You gave up going to the school of your dreams to marry Brad?”
“Yes.” She threw him a reproving look. He was getting a little adamant about her life choices. “And I do regret it. So that’s why I won’t let her give it up for anything. She’s got to go. She’ll learn so much.”
He was quiet and she wondered what he was thinking about. Something in the look on his face told her it still bothered him to think of her giving up her dream that way and she wasn’t sure why he cared.
Everybody had to make choices. Everybody had to give something up now and then. It was part of life.
“I was just thinking about that time we went to San Francisco,” she said a few minutes later. “Remember?”
He looked up and his smile completely changed his face. “Sure I remember. You had set up a weekend to celebrate Brad’s birthday with a surprise trip to San Francisco and then you ended up taking me instead.”
She nodded, still captivated by that smile.
“It was senior year, wasn’t it?” he went on. “You got a hotel just off Union Square and tickets to the ballet—or so you said.”
She nodded again. “That was my big mistake. Once I told Brad that, he suddenly had somewhere else he had to be that weekend.”
She could hardly believe it. What a fool she’d been in those days. “I was so mad, I told him I was going to take you instead. And he said, sure, go ahead.”
Connor smiled, recalling that sunny day. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He was walking on air when she asked him to go with her.
A whole weekend with Jill and no Brad. He hadn’t even cared if it was the ballet. But the beauty of it was, she was just setting up a surprise, because the tickets that she had were for the Giants in Candlestick Park. The ballet thing was just a ruse to tease Brad and the baseball game was supposed to be his big surprise. Instead it was Connor’s.
She gazed at him speculatively. “Sometimes when I look back I wonder why I didn’t notice.”
His heart gave a lurch. What was she reading into his responses? “Notice what?”
She shrugged. “How little Brad actually cared for me.”
Oh, that. It had always been obvious to most of those around her. Brad wanted her when he wanted her, but he didn’t confine his activities too close to home. Still, looking at her now, he couldn’t stand the haunted expression in her eyes. The last thing in the world she should do was beat herself up over the past.
“He cared plenty,” he said gruffly. “He wanted you for himself right from the first. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “I think you know what I mean. Anyway, we had a great time in San Francisco, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did.” He let his head fall back as he thought of it. That trip had planted dreams in his head. You could say he might have been better off without them, but he didn’t think so. His feelings for Jill were a part of that time, even if she never knew it.
“Remember that night? We talked until almost dawn, and then we slept until noon.”
“Yeah.” They had two rooms, but he never went to his own. There were two beds in hers, one for each of them, and he just stayed with her. He never touched her, but he sure wanted to.
And best of all, it was on that night that he knew he was ready to try to have a real relationship. He’d spent the first few years in college wary of making any sort of commitment to any girl. His background had argued strenuously against it.
But Jill was different. He made up his mind that night that he was going to tell her how he felt about her once they got back to the university. And he was resolved—he was going to take her away from Brad. Somehow, someway, he would do it. He spent hours going over what he wanted to say, how he wanted to make her understand his feelings.
And then they got back to school, and there was Brad on crutches. He’d gone waterskiing and broken his leg. Suddenly he needed Jill. Connor felt himself fading into the background, like some sort of invisible man, and wondering why his timing was always so bad.
It was shortly afterward that he signed up to go to Europe for a semester. When he got back, he learned that Jill and Brad had broken up just after he left. From what he could see, Brad was busy dating every pretty girl on campus while Jill was busy trying to pretend she didn’t care.
He took her to his favorite little Italian restaurant and they ate pasta and talked for hours. He ended up with his arm around her while she cried on his shoulder about how awful Brad was being to her. He restrained himself. He was going to do it right. He was going to take it one step at a time.
But once again, the timing wasn’t in his favor. By the next afternoon, Brad was back in her life and all was forgiven.
That was when he’d hardened his heart. It had happened to him one too many times. He wasn’t going to let it happen again—ever. Even today he was wary. What seemed like the opportunity to strike so often ended up as the chance to fall on his face instead. It wasn’t worth it.
“I think of that trip to San Francisco as an island of happiness in an ocean of stress,” she said softly. She looked at him with gentle speculation and a touch of pure affection. “Everything is always so easy with you. And it was always so hard with Brad.”
Really? Really?
He stared at her, wondering how she could say such a thing. If that was so, why had she married the hard guy? He was tempted to come right out and ask her that question. That just might clarify a lot of things between them. But before he could
