Page 15 of She Was Made for Me

He’s cuter than I remember, even though I now know he’s nearly fifty.

Which is double my age. Yikes.

“I, uh, stopped to get us coffee.” I hold his decaf cappuccino out with a sheepish smile. He seems tense, and I guess that’s not surprising. If I can only get him to laugh like yesterday, to relax, this job might actually be fun.

He stares at the coffee cup in my hand, brow pulled low, apparently deciding whether to accept it. “Is it decaf?” he asks at last, and I nod. “Thanks.” I notice he’s careful to make sure his fingers don’t touch mine as he takes the cup from me. Have I become poisonous overnight?

I tap my cup against his like I did yesterday, and he flinches. “I owed you anyway,” I say, trying to segue into addressing the delicate issue at hand, but before I can continue, he lifts his gaze to meet mine.

“You didn’t have to do that. I was trying to do something nice to make your day better.”

“You did.” I smile, letting my gaze rest on his face. Smooth, light-olive complexion, strong nose, beard that would have once been a rich brown but is now threaded with gray. His eyes are a darker shade of green today, a lush forest after rain, and small creases fan out beside them as he studies me. God, I could get lost in those eyes.

Snap out of it.

I swallow. “You definitely did,” I murmur, my voice huskier than I intend.

A flicker of something passes across his features, then he seems to catch himself, clearing his throat and glancing away. “Well, thanks for the coffee.” He taps his clipboard. “Now, we need to—”

“Actually, um, before we do that, can we talk about…” Kyle looks back at me impatiently, but I square my shoulders, trying to do the right thing and clear the air. “I know this is all kinds of awkward, having to work together after… you know.”

He stares at me, unmoving. “No, I don’t know.”

I huff an uncomfortable laugh.Way to make this even more awkward, Kyle.

“Well, it seemed like you were going to ask me out yesterday, I think?” Why is my voice so squeaky? “And then you realized… Anyway, I don’t want things to be weird, so—”

“I wasn’t,” he says sharply.

“What?”

“I wasn’t going to ask you out.” He clears his throat again, his cheeks turning pink under his beard as he pretends to study something on his clipboard.

Okay, so he’s embarrassed. Fair enough.

“Look, you didn’t know I was Richard’s daughter, I get it. I didn’t know you were Dad’s age, either—”

“I’m not,” he cuts in. “I’m only forty-three.” Then he frowns at the clipboard, as if it has personally offended him.

Right, so he’snotnearly fifty. That makes sense. He certainly doesn’t look it.

“It’s okay,” I say gently. “We were hitting it off. But obviously now—”

“It’s not okay. I bought you a coffee, nothing more.”

Irritation fizzles in my stomach. Is he freaking serious right now? I’m almostcertainhe was about to ask me out—it was basically out of his mouth just as Dad arrived. Why won’t he admit it?

I put a hand on my hip. “Are you kidding?”

He takes a long sip of his coffee, buying time. Eventually, he swallows and says, “Nope. Not kidding. And I don’t want to waste time talking about something that doesn’t matter when we’ve got shitloads of work to do.”

I give a scoff of disbelief. He wants to be like that? Well, he can be like that. I’ve worked with plenty of difficult men and I can give as good as I get.

“Fine.” I motion along the hall. “Lead the way.”

He tightens his grip on the clipboard and nods. “Great.” He turns and stalks into the front parlor—a ridiculous name in this day and age, but I digress—and reads from the notes on his clipboard. “First thing we need to do is meet with a structural engineer to check the integrity of the building. Once we get the all-clear there, we can meet with an architect.”

I wander across to the fireplace and set my coffee down on the mantel, rifling in my bag for my notebook and a pen.

---