She tugged her hand away. “Oh, yes, he knew,” she said sourly. “He knew very well. I handed him my room key and came right out and asked him to spend the night with me.”
The man coughed again, making a funny choking sound. Again, Ruthie leaned forward and whacked his back. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Fine. Uh, you handed him your key?”
She nodded. “We’ve been dating for four months, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like I’m some stranger trying to pick him up in a hotel bar! But he looked at me like he was appalled.” She shook her head, regret drawing her brows down over her eyes. “I knew he was conservative. It’s been sheer misery trying to act like I am, too.”
“Why would you have to act like anything but who you are?”
“Who I am doesn’t seem to work, judging by the completely nonexistent sex life I’ve had for the past three years.” Ruthie clapped a hand over her mouth, unable to believe she’d said something so personal to a complete stranger.
He didn’t seem the least bit fazed by her confession. “So you took action?”
“I thought I’d go for a different image,” she admitted, finally realizing what an idiot she’d been to try to fit herself into the mold Bobby seemed to want filled. She ruthlessly reached up and pulled at another bobby pin in her hair, tugging a few red strands out with it. “I even tried to tame this mess. But, I’ll tell you, if I never have to wear a bun or French twist again, it’ll be too soon!”
He reached out a hand and fingered a curl hanging next to her ear, stroking it lightly. Knowing her hair was wildly tangled, she self-consciously moved back until the strands slipped free from his fingers.
“It’d be a crime to hide this,” he murmured. “Other than the curls, what else would you want to change?”
Ruthie looked down at herself and frowned. “Maybe the ten extra pounds sitting on my hips and chest that couldn’t be blasted off with dynamite?” she muttered.
This time, he didn’t chuckle. He laughed, loud and long. “You have got to be kidding. Honey, women pay plastic surgeons buckets of money to get what you’ve got!”
“I’m not an exotic dancer,” she said sourly.
“You could be,” he shot back.
Ruthie’s breath froze in her throat at the intensity in his stare. He ran his gaze over her entire body, messy hair down to her feet. She realized that within a five-minute acquaintance this man was looking at her in a way Bobby never had the entire time they were dating.
Like he wanted to devour her.
Swallowing hard, Ruthie took another bite of cake. She was sitting alone in a darkened kitchen with a complete stranger—a gorgeous stranger, granted—but she didn’t know anything about him. This interlude went against every rule her mother had ever taught her. She wondered why she didn’t care.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she said with a self-conscious smile.
“Maybe telling me your troubles is easier than admitting them to someone who knows you well? Keep talking, I have nowhere else I’d rather be, and I’m a good listener.”
Ruthie was unable to hide the tears springing up in the corners of her eyes. Here she was in the company of this breathtakingly handsome man, and he was watching her with those soulful brown eyes, gentle, interested, sexy as hell. And she was blubbering over another guy, one she couldn’t even say she was really attracted to in the first place!
She knew better than anyone the main reason she’d attempted to move her relationship with Bobby to another level: she wanted commitment, wanted happily ever after like Celeste and Denise. Even if it was with a man who was nice instead of thrilling, sweet instead of desirable, friendly instead of hot enough to melt the clothes right off her body! Sleeping with Bobby had seemed important because it was a natural progression in a long-term relationship. There’d been no fire. No passionate sparks. Ruthie had thought being with him would be comfortable, nice, sedate. Like Bobby himself.
Seduction had seemed like a good idea. He, judging by the shocked expression on his face when she’d handed him her key, didn’t agree.
Ruthie started sniffling again, not only because of her teary eyes but also because of a bad case of springtime allergies that had been plaguing her for days. She reached up and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, not even caring that another one of her mother’s rules went flying out the window. Her fingers came away with a smudge of chocolate, and she realized she must have had a mustache over her lips. “Oh, great, I look like Charlie Chaplin, don’t I?” This time she couldn’t stop the fat tears that rolled out of her eyes, down her cheeks and landed with a plop on the butcher-block table.
The beautiful man moved his hand to her face, cupped her chin with infinite gentleness and turned her head. Forcing her to look at him, he leaned closer, so close she could smell the chocolate and champagne on his breath, and wondered if her scent was half as intoxicating as his.
“You look lovely to me. And I don’t even know your name.”
For some reason, his words made the tears come faster, and suddenly the day’s events, her loneliness and the blow to her self-confidence crashed in on her with the weight of a ton of cement blocks. “It’s Ruthie. My name’s Ruthie,” she said between sniffs.
He smiled gently and reached toward his pocket. “Here, wipe your tears, Ruth. A woman with eyes as bright and green as yours has no business crying.”
Ruthie watched him reach into the pocket of his sports coat and begin to pull out a handkerchief. It occurred to her to be slightly touched by the old-fashioned gesture, since most men she knew didn’t carry handkerchiefs anymore.
Before she could say a word, however, he tugged the white cotton fabric free, and with it came a few other objects from his pocket. She heard a clink, looked down, and saw the two items that had landed on the floor between the two stools. They were unmistakable. A key and…“Oh, God,” she wailed, “Is everyone in this hotel having sex tonight except me?”
2
IF SHE HADN’T looked so adorably indignant, Robert might have laughed again. He was unable to hide a grin, though, as she threw her crossed arms down on the table in front of her and plopped her head onto them.
Ruthie. Sweet, funny, voluptuous Ruthie. How could he ever have imagined he’d stumble onto such a vibrant woman in the darkened kitchen of a hotel? Or that she’d appeal to him so instantly, so sharply, like no other woman had in years?
For whatever reason, Robert suddenly felt like a kid on Christmas morning, who’d found his favorite gift was one he hadn’t even included on his ten page wish list!
Things were definitely looking up. Maybe he would even have reason to look back on Monica’s ridiculous offer and be thankful. It had driven him here, to this room, at just the right moment to meet someone who had knocked his socks off in less than fifteen minutes.
Someone who, he realized, was still sniffling as she kept her face buried in her crossed arms.
“No, I’m definitely not having sex
