the kind of showplace house her father would have eyed with a fanatical gleam, sure the owner had plenty of spare cash to donate to the church. The kind of place she’d never have been invited into as a child.
She heard Adam’s footsteps behind her and turned as he entered the room. He set the plates on the table and held out a chair for her. Once seated she muttered a quick prayer of thanks under her breath.
Then glanced up in time to see him take his seat. The meal was delicious and she wanted to keep the conversation light. To remind herself that no matter what Adam intimated, this wasn’t the beginning of a personal relationship.
But she wanted to know more about him. She wanted to find out why he had a thing about lying. Most people paid lip service to believing in that, but in real life often rattled off falsehoods without a second thought.
She should just ask him straight out if he’d seen the story in her office and maybe picked it up. But she’d be so embarrassed if she had to explain about it. What if it wasn’t Adam? Jose, Bruce and other staffers went in and out of her office all the time. Even students and other teachers had access.
For just one night, she wanted to see the real man so that when she got home after this strange day was over, she could write down her impressions of him. The way his hand had felt on hers. The way his lips had moved over hers. The way he’d cocked his head to the side and really listened while she talked about subjects on which no one else wanted her opinion.
Even if she never saw him again, she knew he’d given her a gift. But she would see him again. And she didn’t want to slip back into invisible mode with him. The weight of her hair against her shoulders reminded her that he already saw her in a different light.
“What were your parents like?” she asked, when they’d finished their main course and were having coffee on his deck. It overlooked the well-landscaped backyard. In the center of the yard was a large pool with a waterfall on the far end.
“Ward and June Cleaver. Are you old enough to know who they are?” he asked.
“I think everyone has seen Leave It to Beaver on Nick@Nite.”
“Very funny. My mom and dad were the perfect parents, doting, supportive, strict when they needed to be.”
“So why haven’t you settled down?” she asked. It was the one thing she’d always wondered about him. He seemed so perfect—what was stopping him from committing to one of the perfect women he dated?
“Why haven’t you?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. This was why she didn’t do close relationships. Sooner or later you had to talk about your past. Small talk only lasted so long. “I didn’t grow up with the perfect parents.”
“What kind of childhood did you have?” he asked.
It was an innocent question. She wanted to counter with a change of topic—something to turn the spotlight back on him—but she wasn’t going to, because she did want to get to know Adam better. And that thing he’d said earlier about trust had struck a nerve. Here was a man she thought she could trust.
“I don’t know. One like most kids. I think you’re the exception, Adam.” In her small town, he would have been the exception. They’d had rich kids like everywhere else, but no one who’d grown up the way Adam had. Traveling every season, going to trendy ski resorts and all-inclusive Caribbean getaways instead of riding in the backseat of a cramped car to some dreary relative’s house several hours away.
“How?” he asked, his interest genuine.
“Just that a lot of parents weren’t that supportive of kids in my neighborhood.”
“You’re from a small town, right?”
“Yes. A poor one. Most families really scrambled to make a living.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“What did your folks do?”
She should never have started this conversation. How could she talk about being deprived when her father had been a preacher and had provided a nice house for her? How could she explain, without sounding like a whiner, exactly the way she’d been deprived? How could she explain what she herself never wanted to understand?
“My dad’s a preacher.”
“So you’re the rebellious preacher’s daughter?”
“No. Not a rebel. I prefer to just blend into the walls.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Well I must be doing something wrong, because you weren’t supposed to notice.”
“I didn’t until today.”
She smiled at the way he said it. Like it was an important thing. That having noticed her had made a difference to him.
Was it because of the story?
“I’ve noticed you before.”
“Really? Tell me what you observed.”
She took her time trying to figure out how to tell him what she’d seen in him without revealing how deeply she’d studied him. Now that she was here with him, she felt a little silly that she’d given him a starring role in her fantasies without really knowing the man behind the good looks.
Adam knew he was pushing. But the more he learned about Grace, the more he realized that his knowing about her fantasies was going to wound her. She gave off the image of being so superefficient and competent that only tonight had he glimpsed the vulnerabilities she had underneath.
He didn’t want her to think he’d exploited those weaknesses. And guilt ate at him. Omissions were lies, he thought. Hell, he knew that omissions were the biggest kind of lies.
But he wanted to hear from her lips that she found him attractive. That he hadn’t imagined the story that he’d reread during the day about five times. He knew exactly what she liked. How she wanted a man who was forceful in the bedroom but sensitive and understanding outside.
To be honest, that wasn’t how he normally operated with a woman, but everything about Grace was different. She made him want to be more. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t explain it to himself. But tonight, with a cool breeze in the air and the fragrance of the blooming vegetation around his pool filling the air, he didn’t care.
He didn’t want to think of anything other than this woman and how he could convince her she’d be safe in his arms. And he wanted her in his arms. He wanted her mouth under his with no dinner buzzer about to go off. No crowded restaurant of people too close to them. Just the two of them and the night and nothing between them.
“Come on, Grace, what did you think about me the first time we met?” he asked, having the feeling that she was going to just keep quiet and let the conversation die an awkward death.
“It’s complicated,” she said, leaving the deck and walking toward the pool. She stopped by a potted hibiscus and bent to smell the bloom.
She ran whenever he pushed too far into
