child.
Would she really let this golden opportunity pass her by? And if she did, would she spend the rest of her life kicking herself for letting Seth Bolton slip through her fingers?
Was she out of her mind?
So that was a no, then.
Seth took one look at Kate and sighed. She was wearing a black pantsuit with a white blouse that was buttoned up almost to her chin. Her glorious hair had been scraped back into a severe ponytail and there wasn’t a smile to be seen anywhere despite the fact that it was another lovely late-October Saturday. She looked more like she was on her way to a funeral than a house tour.
And if that didn’t make her position clear enough, there was no missing the way Kate’s pretty mouth twisted into a scowl when Seth walked into Zanger Realty at ten fifty-eight in the morning.
Definitely a no.
He shouldn’t be disappointed. This had been the most likely outcome, after all. There was no getting around the reality of the situation, and that reality was that Kate was expecting and she didn’t want to get involved with anyone.
He should be relieved. Her personal life was a mess and only an idiot would put himself in the middle of that. Her rejection was going to save him a lot of trouble and not a little heartache.
And yet—relief was not the feeling that had his stomach plummeting. No, he was not disappointed. And if he were, it was about the fact that he was going to be missing out on some great casual sex. After all, he didn’t have to worry about getting her pregnant, right?
But that didn’t explain the weight of sadness that settled around his shoulders. He and Kate could’ve been great together, but now? They’d never know.
Still, he was a gentleman and a man of his word. He was not going to make this awkward, nor was he going to try to change her mind. He would not badger, nag or wheedle. He had no interest in being with a woman he had to wear down. He’d seen those kinds of guys in action in college and “pathetic desperation” didn’t make anyone attractive. Good sex became great when everyone involved was equally enthusiastic about it.
So he straightened his shoulders and put on a friendly grin, even if it took effort to do so. “Good morning, Kate. What will we be looking at today?” Because the answer obviously wasn’t each other.
Her scowl deepened as she stared at something on her desk. She looked positively insulted by his presence, which didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t even been insulted when he propositioned her. Shocked, maybe. Curious? Definitely. But not insulted. What the hell was going on?
“I have nine houses in your new price range on the schedule. We should get going.”
The no couldn’t have been louder if she’d shouted it. What a shame. “Nine sounds good,” he said, striving his hardest for friendly. “Thirteen was too much last weekend.” She still wasn’t meeting his gaze, so he charged ahead. “I made dinner reservations at the Main Course for six thirty, but if you don’t think we’ll be done before then, I can change the time.” She hadn’t been comfortable at the diner—or at least, she’d been okay until Jack showed up.
Tonight would be different. They’d have a quiet dinner, just the two of them and a bunch of house listings. No interfering family friends, no distractions.
Although, given the body language she was putting off, maybe they could use a few distractions. Because even closed down, she still called to him on a fundamental level that had nothing to do with reason or logic.
He’d made his offer last week because he’d convinced himself that he could show her a good time, no strings attached. But today? When the answer was no?
He should be able to let it go. He’d asked, she’d said no, end of discussion.
But looking at her now, he wasn’t sure his offer had been only about her. Because he still wanted her. Desperately.
She hadn’t answered yet. “Kate? We’re still on for dinner, right?” He expected any number of polite excuses—she’d had a long night, she had other plans, she would be too tired. She had an actual funeral, thereby justifying the outfit. Something.
So when she looked at him through her lashes and said, “That sounds nice,” in a tone that stroked over his ears like a lover’s kiss, he didn’t know what to make of it. And when she shot him a nervous smile before dropping her gaze again, he had even less of an idea.
Because that wasn’t a no. It sure as hell wasn’t a yes, either.
What if he was looking at a maybe?
* * *
Five hours later, he had absolutely no idea what to make of Kate Burroughs. Through eight other houses, she’d kept her distance, never getting within two feet of him. Not like he was going to grab her, but still. She was definitely not close enough to touch. No accidentally brushing hands as they stood in a narrow hallway—of which there were several. No putting his hand on her lower back to guide her out of a room. No gentlemanly offers of his hand or his arm for her to lean against as they walked over uneven paver stones.
However, every single time he’d glanced at her, he’d caught her watching him. She always looked away quickly, as if she were going to pretend she hadn’t been staring, but he could feel her gaze upon him. She’d also thawed—slowly at first, but she’d gotten noticeably warmer to him as the day had progressed. She’d left her scowl behind at the first house—a markedly more habitable dwelling than nearly anything they’d looked at the previous week. By the third house, her lips had gone from a tight line to a gentle smile and by the fifth house, she was laughing at his jokes again. By the seventh house, her eyes softened and she let her gaze linger upon him when he’d glance at her, like she didn’t want to look away.
She was still absolutely captivating.
He had to play this cool. As much as he desperately wanted to pull her into his arms and show her exactly how good they could be together, he didn’t dare. She had to come to him, and besides—her decision was separate from their business dealings.
So he was doing his best not to think about anything other than real estate. It was a battle he wasn’t necessarily winning, but he was trying.
“This isn’t bad,” he said, standing in the middle of a gleaming kitchen with a professional six-burner stove, a fridge with cabinet facings on the door and an island with a marble countertop. The whole thing was done in whites and grays with splashes of red and bright blue for accents. This was the last house of the day and they were on schedule, with a whole thirty-five minutes before their dinner reservations.
Kate snorted. “Four hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars and it’s not bad?”
“Compared to what we looked at last week, it’s amazing,” he conceded.
He stood at the island, trying to get a sense for how the room flowed. And the fact that he was thinking about the flow of rooms was odd. He’d never considered work triangles and flow before. He and his mom had lived in a cramped two-room place before Billy Bolton had come into their lives, and then they’d moved into Billy’s house and it’d been great
