“Are you even single?” I asked.
He cocked his head and made me wait. In the silent seconds that followed, I knew I should take the question back. “I’m available, yes,” he said finally. “Thanks for asking.”
“I’m just making conversation.”
He shifted his gaze. “Something wrong with your earring?”
I realized I was fidgeting with it. “No,” I said, lowering my hand to my side.
“You were doing that earlier. Inside. Nervous habit?”
It was, but I wasn’t about to give him any more than I had. How had he even noticed? “If you’re asking if you make me nervous, you don’t. I’m long past the butterflies-in-my-tummy stage of my life.”
“That’s a shame,” he murmured.
“No, it isn’t. I hate that feeling of . . .”
He raised his chin, looking intrigued. “Of what,Olivia?”
He drew out my name the way he might run a fingertip down my side. More goose bumps sprung over my skin, and David’s eyes jumped to my bare shoulder. The man noticed everything, every little way he affected me. I hatedthatfeeling, too, as much as it intoxicated me—that sense that he could read my thoughts, my fears and desires.
I didn’t want to be that vulnerable to anyone—not even my husband.
Especiallynot my husband.
That was how people got hurt. Their walls came down, and they stopped protecting themselves—and divorce took down everything and everyone in its path.
I needed to walk away—if not out of respect for Bill, then to save myself from getting any closer to David.
“Take my coat,” David said, but made no move to take it off. “You’re nearly shivering.”
“I’m going back inside.”
“I should warn you—I’m not good at taking no for an answer. I can be very persistent.”
I leaned in until we were almost touching. “No.”
“You’d rather freeze?”
“How many other girls have you offered your coat to tonight?”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. A possible sore spot? “None.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m not what you think.”
“You don’t have women falling at your feet wherever you go? Endless dates on your arm like Andrew said? You’renota total playboy?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’ve never, not once, described myself as a playboy.”
“But have other people?”
He inhaled a short breath. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “That I’ve waited my whole life for you?”
Even though he was being sarcastic, my annoying heart skipped a beat. We’d met twice, and he was already very much under my skin. “Excuse me,” I said, ducking out from under him.
“Wait.” He caught my elbow so swiftly, I was too stunned to do anything but let him pull me back to him. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
