chapter.12

He'd thought she was speaking in hyperbole when she'd said she could eat an entire Las

Vegas buffet. But looking at her now as she attacked the surf 'n' turf special, he

wondered if maybe she'd meant it literally.

"Why are you watching me eat?" she demanded as she buttered another dinner roll.

With real butter, he noted, and plenty of it.

"I'm reevaluating what I know about women," he said. "The last woman I took out

to dinner ate a small salad with no dressing. Then she said she was stuffed."

"She wanted to sleep with you." Julia pointed her butter knife in Colin's direction.

"Women don't eat in front of men they want to sleep with. At least, not at first."

The revelation was both interesting and disappointing to Colin. Interesting, because

it was a tidbit he might find handy in the future. Disappointing, because the zeal with

which Julia was eating must therefore mean that his chances of sleeping with her were

pretty much nonexistent.

Not that he wanted to. Except, he found that he did want to, more and more the

longer he knew her. He silently scolded himself for the very thought. Trying to sleep with

someone as plagued by emotional turmoil as Julia was right now would be unwise, to put

it mildly.

"So, did she?" Julia asked, interrupting Colin's thoughts.

"Did she what?"

"Did she sleep with you? I kind of want to know now. Since the poor woman had to

go without a meal to make it happen." She took another lusty bite of her roll.

"Ah … no. I took her straight home after dinner. Peck on the cheek at the door."

"Ouch. The date must have sucked. In my experience, a peck on the cheek at the

door is a man's way of saying, Hey, let's do this again as soon as hell freezes over."

Julia was exactly right about how the date had gone and about what Colin had meant

with the goodbye kiss. But it would have been ungentlemanly to say so.

"So, if a woman doesn't eat in front of a man she wants to sleep with …" He trailed

off and gestured toward Julia's plate, which looked like it had been attacked by a pack of

starving wolverines. He knew he shouldn't be going there, shouldn't be raising the idea

of the two of them together, but he couldn't seem to help himself.

She followed his gesture, looking down at her plate with confusion. Then she looked

back at him questioningly, before understanding dawned in her eyes.

"I'm just saying, I guess this means I don't have a shot with you." He gave her an

amused half-grin that he had reason to believe was charming. At least, he hoped it was.

"Do you want to have a shot with me?" She looked vaguely stunned, as though his

flirtations had come out of nowhere. But they hadn't; not really. Not after the handholding

on the plane that had gone on long after she had stopped being afraid of fiery

death.

Had he just imagined something there?

He didn't think so. But now, considering the way she was looking at him in surprise,

he wasn't so sure.

It was too much.

After all, she'd been through that day, she didn't have the emotional energy to deal

with getting hit on by an epically hot, spectacularly rich man whom she wasn't sure she

could resist. It was too much pressure, too weighty with possibility. And there was too

much potential for excitement and joy—and there was no way she could feel the excitement

and joy right now, with everything else that was going on.

"Would it be such a bad idea?" he said, in answer to a question she'd almost

forgotten she'd asked.

Of course, it would be. The idea of having what likely would be mind-blowing sex

with a man who made her palms sweat, combined with the anguish of her family's

implosion would give Julia emotional whiplash on a scale she hadn't experienced since

seventh grade, when Jason Atwood asked her out on the same day she woke up with a zit

the size of a walnut on her forehead.

It would be too much pleasure and pain. Too much yin and yang. Just too much

everything.

"For God's sake," she said. "I'm going to the bar for a drink." She slung her purse

over her shoulder, picked up her coat, and then, as an afterthought, grabbed another roll

from the basket on the table and took it with her as she stalked out of the dining room and

to the bar.

It was possible that Colin had made a tactical error. He'd thought that getting his

growing attraction to Julia out in the open would be a good thing—either she would be

open to see what might happen between them, if anything or she would shoot him

down and he could move on. But his tentative inquiry had just seemed to piss her off, and

now he was left alone at the dinner table with a decimated surf 'n' turf plate and his own

sense of regret.

He called for the check, paid it, and then considered his options. Should he join her

at the bar? Return to the B&B and leave her to walk the twenty yards back by herself?

Thinking about all he knew of Julia, an admittedly limited amount, he called the

waiter back and ordered a dessert to go. When it arrived and he had paid, he carried the

small, square, Styrofoam container to the bar and perched on a stool beside Julia.

By the time he got there, she was most of the way through a martini.

"Why did you have to do that?" she barked at him.

The look he gave her was all innocent surprise. "Do what?"

"Oh, you know what."

She must have been someone who didn't drink a lot, or who didn't usually drink

hard alcohol; the martini had already softened her edges, made her a little looser, made

her voice a little louder. Unless it was the stress she was under, he had to

acknowledge it was considerable.

"Maybe I do, but enlighten me."

"Bringing up the thing about … you know …" She waved a hand vaguely. "Sex.

Because that's really all I need right now. To think about you, and me, and what that

would be like when I was already thinking about you and me, and what that would be

like. And I don't have time for that! I have to think about Drew." She shook her head.

"God. Men." She said it as though men were, in fact, the single greatest source of

exasperation and sorrow in the female universe. Which, he supposed, they might be.

"You were already thinking about it?" he prompted her.

"That's not the point!" She took another slug of the martini, finishing it off, and then

put the glass back down onto the bar with a slap.

He grinned—he couldn't help it. The idea that she'd been thinking about him, and as

more than just the asshole who'd brought turmoil into her life warmed him inside, and

the smile just wasn't something he could suppress.

She was not like any other women he'd dated—not that he was dating her, although

that thought was appealing.

He'd made his way through a number of women down in San Diego, most of the

upscale, overly polished variety, the kind of women who wore a size two, got their hair

expertly colored and deep-conditioned every six weeks, and worried about the grooming

of personal areas that, in his opinion, did not require grooming.

Julia was different. She knew how to eat, for one thing, she dressed for comfort, and

she had a natural glow about her that had nothing to do with expensive cosmetics or skin

treatments. He didn't know her well—not yet—but she seemed to be just … herself.

When had that trait in a person become a rarity? And was it a rarity among everyone, or

just the people he seemed to socialize with these days?

Even as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer.

The Delaneys—the rest of them, anyway—were just themselves, always, and to hell

with the consequences. But Colin had left that world behind when he'd gone to an Ivy

League school, and when he'd settled in a city that valued appearances about as much as

it valued waterfront property and a good fish taco. Part of him enjoyed his adopted

environment—he liked expensive shoes and well-cut suits as well as anyone, and

certainly more than any of the other Delaneys—but another part of him could see what

he'd been missing, could see why his family shook their collective heads at his choices.

Julia raised her hand to order another drink from the bartender, and he remembered

the dessert box in his hand.

"I brought you this." He put the box on the bar and shoved it toward her.

"What is it?" Her voice held a suspicious edge.

"Look."

She opened the box and peered inside. Her eyes widened.

"It's double chocolate lava cake. I didn't know if you liked chocolate, or if you had

any food allergies or anything. I took a chance."

It was bad enough that Colin Delaney seemed to be offering Julia sex. But now he

was also offering her chocolate, and that was just playing dirty. How was she supposed to

stay strong and resist her animal impulses when he kept appealing to them so expertly?

"Damn it," she said. "Really, just … damn it. You're too much."

"Well …"

"And there's no fork."

He got up from his barstool, walked over to a server's station near the bar, and

returned holding a clean fork aloft triumphantly. He handed the fork to Julia.

"I guess you might as well get another fork for yourself," she said grudgingly.

She'd thought to bury her sexual impulses in a grave made of molten chocolate. But

it didn't quite work out that way, as sharing warm chocolate cake with Colin turned out

to be nearly as sexual as actual naked fondling would have been.

"My God," she moaned as she slid a forkful of cake, dripping with chocolate sauce,

into her mouth. She let out a low, throaty sound that was involuntary—and that was also

a tactical error, apparently, since it caused him to stare at her with open desire.

He hadn't had any alcohol that evening, but now he raised his hand to the bartender

and indicated, with a flick of his finger, that he wanted one of what she was having, plus

a fresh drink for Julia.

The bar wasn't busy, so it took only a moment for two fresh drinks to be placed in

front of them. They both drank and ate until the martinis and the molten chocolate cake

were gone.

She liked a good glass of wine in the evenings, but usually, that was it. She'd only

ordered a martini because they looked good when people drank them in the movies. Now,

she understood that people didn't drink them for the sophistication of the little olives on

their little toothpicks inside the glass. They drank them to get drunk off their asses.

She wasn't quite drunk off her ass, but she definitely felt more effect than her usual

glass of Chardonnay had ever managed to produce. She hadn't felt like this since college

when she'd mistakenly had some punch at a frat party because it had looked refreshing.

Live and learn.

When she got off her barstool so they could head back to the B&B, the room spun a

little, so she had to grab onto the edge of the bar for purchase.

"Whoa, there," Colin said, taking her arm to steady her.

"Jeez. I don't usually drink martinis," she said as she stood still for a moment to

steady herself.

"The travel and the stress probably also have something to do with it," he said. "It's

been a hell of a day for you."

The reminder of just what she'd been through that day—of Drew's accusing look

when he'd told her to get out of his house-made tears spring to her eyes without

warning.

"Hey, hey," he told her. "Let's get you back to your room."