Page 8 of Finding Amanda

"Fate? This isn't fate. This is . . . What are you doing here, anyway?"

He sat back, and she inhaled a mouthful of refreshing air.

"Research. I had a meeting with a professor at Columbia. But now that I see you, I know you're what really brought me."

Amanda let the comment pass—as well as its implications. "Research for what?"

"I'm working on a book myself. I doubt it'll be as interesting as your cookbook. I'm writing a textbook for psychiatry students."

"Oh." A psychiatry textbook, so he could influence the next generation. How . . . discomforting. He looked at her expectantly, so she added, "Interesting."

He smiled. It didn't disarm her like it used to. She saw him now as a chocolate-covered cockroach, a candy-coated scorpion.

"I don't see patients anymore. I gave up my practice a few years ago to teach college full-time."

"I see."

A quick, humorless chuckle. “What happened, Amanda?"

"I . . . I met someone else."

"So quickly? You loved me in August, and by December, you'd already replaced me?" His gaze flicked to her left hand. "Wasit him?"

"No. Just . . ." Beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip. "I just . . . I decided after I got away from you . . ."

His right eyebrow rose in an accusing question mark.

"Not that I had to get away from you. I just mean that once we were apart, and I had some perspective, I realized . . . I couldn't do it."

"You couldn't do what?"

The truth wasn't an option. Amanda swallowed her fear. "I couldn't break up your marriage. You had kids to worry about, and?—"

"So you disappeared? To protect my kids?"

Now it washerturn to eyehisring finger. The diamond and gold band glittered, just like it always had. "It worked. You're still married."

"No phone call. No letter. Nothing. You just . . ." He snapped his fingers. "Disappeared. Did you pick your husband because of his last name? Easy to hide behind a name like Johnson."

A flash of anger. "Right. Because everything I do is about you. How incredibly arrogant?—"

He leaned forward and grabbed the arms of her chair in his huge hands. His face loomed inches from hers. "We were engaged."

Her answer was just as cold. "You were already married. And I was . . ." A kid. That's what she wanted to say. Eighteen when she'd left him, but only sixteen when the affair had started. What had he expected?

And why didn't she have the courage to say it aloud?

He sat back and folded his arms. She mirrored his posture, staring boldly into his blazing eyes, though her anger dissipated quickly, evaporating in the steam of simmering fear. She looked at his knees, at the crease in his charcoal slacks as they fell over his kneecaps.

He rested his forearms on his thighs, touching his fingertips together between his knees. She studied his manicured fingernails, the dark hair sweeping across the backs of his hands. She stared at the white edges of his shirtsleeves, folded like wings preparing for flight. His onyx cufflinks suspended between his wrists, staring at her like the peering eyes of a bird of prey.

"I'm sorry. I should have contacted you. I thought you might try to talk me out of it."

"I would have. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of you."

Unfortunately, she could say the same.

"So, you write cookbooks."

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