who? she thought foggily, then blinked.
“Yes. Well, hello, Ryan,” she said, tearing her gaze from his.
The man assisted her with her chair and she sank onto it gratefully, her trembling legs threatening to give way beneath her. She spread her napkin on her lap, smoothed it, then straightened the corners into a perfect square.
“I’m very glad to see you again,” Ryan said. “Thank you for coming, for having lunch with me.”
He was more than glad to see her, he thought. As he’d watched her come closer and closer to him he’d been consumed by a strange sense of…rightness, of her being where she belonged…with him. A warmth had crept around his heart, then, an instant later, coiled and churned low in his body as desire flared into flames of heat.
His intense reaction to Carolyn was unexpected, but here it was, and for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom he welcomed it, embraced it, owned it willingly.
Carolyn slowly raised her head, looked directly at Ryan, ignored the pitter-patter of her heart and prayed to the heavens that she didn’t have a dopey, dreamy expression on her face.
“Let’s order our lunch, shall we?” she said. Oh, good grief, was that her voice, that I-can-hardly-breathe-when-I’m-this-close-to-you sound? “My desk is stacked with work. Said desk that will no longer hold flower vases because I’m here as agreed.”
“You’re dusting me off.” Ryan frowned. “Won’t you accept my apology for my earlier behavior? Give me another chance?”
Carolyn sighed. “So you can get on your soap-box? Ryan, you believe that bringing Asian children here is basically wrong because they don’t resemble their adoptive families or their peers. You feel that what I do, what I’m devoted to doing is right…only to a point. I don’t want to hear all that again.”
“I’m very sorry about what I said that day. Please, Carolyn, believe that. I’m extremely grateful for my loving family and the advantages I’ve had.
“Yes, I had some problems, but that’s no excuse for saying what I did to you, and I know that. Let’s start all over again. Okay? Have dinner with me tomorrow night? It will be Friday, the beginning of the weekend, a new beginning for us that can erase what happened in your office the other day. Please?”
Nope, Carolyn thought, deciding that her napkin needed attention again. She was not going out to dinner with Ryan. No way.
Then again… It had been months since she’d been on a date. Months. Ryan was charming, intelligent, so handsome it was ridiculous, and he had apologized about a gazillion times for the crummy, negative things he’d said that first day and…
It would be a nice change to go out on a Friday night, instead of spending another one curled up with a good book. Not that she didn’t like to read good books, but… Was she mentally babbling? Yes, she was, no doubt about it, due to the fact that Ryan Sharpe had the capability of throwing her off-kilter. But as long as she was aware of that fact, she could stay one step ahead of it, or ignore it, or whatever and…
“All right,” she said, looking at Ryan again. “I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow night, Ryan.”
“You will?” Ryan said, an incredulous tone to his voice.
“Yes.”
“Great. Fantastic. Seven o’clock? I’ll need your address, too. For the record, I want you to know that I was fully prepared to resume my flower crusade to get you to agree to dinner.”
“Oh, spare me.” Carolyn laughed. “The flowers were lovely, really beautiful, but the whole staff at the agency was hovering around, trying to get me to divulge who my admirer was.” Her smile faded. “I really don’t care for being the center of attention like that. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Uh-oh. Do I owe you another apology for sending all those flowers.”
“No,” she said, smiling at him warmly. “I’ve never had flowers delivered to me before. Not once in my life. They really were beautiful and…well, thank you.”
“You’ve never received a bouquet of flowers from a man?” Ryan frowned.
“Are you folks ready to order?” a waitress said, appearing at the table.
“Yes,” Carolyn said quickly.
Bless you, sweet lady, she thought. She didn’t want to go further down this conversational path of poor little Carolyn St. John, who had never been the recipient of a bouquet of flowers from a man who had centered his thoughts on her.
“What would you like to eat?” Ryan said.
“I have no idea,” Carolyn said, laughing, as she snatched the menu from the top of the table. “I’ll only take a second to decide, though. I really do have so much work to tend to this afternoon.”
“Fair enough.” Ryan opened his own menu. “We can make this a quick lunch and follow it by a leisurely, unhurried dinner tomorrow night.”
Yes, that was true, wasn’t it? Carolyn thought, scanning the selection on the menu. And it sounded very, very nice.
Chapter Three
Carolyn hummed a peppy tune as she turned one way, then the other in front of the mirror hanging on the inside of her closet door.
Excellent, she thought. The dusty-rose, lightweight wool dress she’d purchased during her lunch hour seemed even more lovely now than it had in the store.
The long sleeves closed at her wrists with three small pearl buttons, and three matching buttons formed a delicate line down from the round collarless neckline. It was simple, but she hoped rather classy.
Her strappy, two-inch-heel evening sandals and small clutch purse were just the right finishing touch. Her hair was freshly shampooed, her makeup applied with exacting care and she’d added a dab of floral cologne.
She was ready.
To see Ryan.
To spend the next handful of hours with an incredibly handsome man, who had not been far from her thoughts the entire day as she anticipated their evening together.
Carolyn closed the closet door, then stared into space with a slight frown.
She was behaving ridiculously, she thought. Good grief, she’d skipped lunch so she could go shopping for a new dress, had rushed home to shower and shampoo her hair, had spent a silly amount of time getting her makeup just the way she wanted it and…
Carolyn smiled. “And I’m glad I did.”
She snatched up the clutch purse from the bed, left the bedroom and went down the short hall to the living room where she set the purse on an end table.
She could tell herself, she supposed, that she’d gone to all this fuss and bother because this was her first date in many months and she deserved to go a bit overboard.
But that wouldn’t be true.
She was giddy and acting
