Page 34 of Some Like It Scandalous
Riding the belt backward, she stepped off and put her hands on her hips, gulping air. Sweat gleamed on her face. Her flushed cheeks added to the sparkle in her eyes. “I don’t hate you. I don’t think…I ever hated you. I told myself I did. A lot.” She panted, but she didn’t look away.
So many responses came to mind and he frowned. “I didn’t like not telling you the truth—about my title. But I never hid whoIwas—am.”
Her gaze dropped to her feet and she licked her lips. “When they showed up that night… When I found out…I was…”
Tucking a finger under her chin, he nudged her gaze back up to him. “Just say it—all of it. I can—I need to hear it.”
Two days of skirting Pandora’s box was over, maybe they needed to lance the wound and let it pour out. His regrets tangled with a slow, lingering anger that curdled in his gut. But burying it didn’t make it go away.
Tongue rubbing against her upper lip, she studied him. “I didn’t understand why I didn’t know. Why would you keep it so much a secret? Why—why I had to be kept in the dark? And if you could lie about that…”
“What else did I lie about?” He finished the thought for her and nodded. They were fair—if hard—questions. Grabbing his own towel and a bottle of water, he jerked his head toward the mats. “You need to stretch so you don’t cramp up.”
She trailed after him and it wasn’t until they were sitting, legs stretched and the toes of their shoes touching, that he broached the answer. “I didn’t tell you—I didn’t tell you when I first saw you because I just wanted a date. You were beautiful, sassy and funny—God, you were funny. I liked being around you—even when you said no.”
“I only said no for a week,” she pointed out, leaning into a stretch over her right knee.
“It was a dreadfully long week.” Stalking her schedule, putting himself in her path, learning what she read, what she liked, where she preferred to study—even drinking the terrible java from the coffeehouse she worked in. He followed her stretch and leaned over his left knee, bringing them nose to nose. “And what I wanted was a date—someone who wanted me, not mytitle. The point of a U.S. university was to fly under the radar. Not announce myself.”
He never intended the lie to last. Hell, he didn’t intend the lie.
“So why did you call yourself Charlie?” Confusion clouded her gaze and he sighed.
“Anna, I never introduced myself to you as Charlie.” He transferred his stretch to his right leg and straightened his foot when she flattened her shoe to his.
“You did, you said?—”
“I said,” he interrupted smoothly, “‘Would you like to get coffee with me after work?’”
She frowned.
“And then you said…”
“‘I just served coffee, you think I want to drink it?’” Her wistful smile tied a bow around his heart.
“And I responded, ‘Then let me buy you dinner…whatever you want.’”
“I said ‘no. I had to study.’” Her lips pursed and she straightened.
“To which I said, ‘pizza then—and maybe a bottle of wine…’”
“‘No wine. Just water. I said study, not get laid.’” Her lips twitched.
“But you agreed to dinner.” He raised his brows.
“Yes, I agreed to pizza. You offered to bring it over to my dorm room and I was in an all-girl dorm and guys weren’t allowed, so we met downstairs on the quad and had pizza and water and studied under the tree.” She chewed her lower lip.
“Before I left you pulled out a twenty.” Exasperation resurfaced at this, as it always did. “You wanted to split the cost of the pizza. That way it wasn’t a real date.”
She blushed. “You wouldn’t take the twenty until I said ‘my name is Anna Novak and I don’t freeload. A date meanspromises and I’m not promising you anything—especially when I don’t know your name.’”
He nodded slowly and extended his right hand out to her. “‘Charles Dagmar, a pleasure to meet you.’”
Anna froze, the smile fading completely from her lips. He watched the memory crash over her and he waited, hand extended. She took his hand in hers, and her fingers trembled. “Hi, Charlie. Nice to meet you.”
“And you never called me anything else.”
“Charles is your middle name.” She gripped his hand tightly.
