“Promise. I will never ever imply that you once wanted to pay me for sex.”
“I never wanted—” He broke off, realizing that she was baiting him.
He was really getting better at this whole reading-of-the-people routine. She felt so proud.
Gray’s jaw tightened, and his voice sounded gruff. “It was just those damn boots. They were awful. I figured no self-respecting woman would wear them.”
Sophie let out a half laugh. “You made a snap judgment based on my shoe choice?”
He lifted a shoulder and continued eating his salad.
She shook her head. “Talk about judgmental crap.”
“Talk about slutty shoes.”
That made her smile ruefully. “And to think I spent a good hour getting ready that night. All my hard work defeated by the wrong shoe selection. I was this close to picking a very respectable sandal.”
“Now can I ask you something?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Very good, Gray. Showing interest in your date is progress.”
He ignored her attempt at evasion. “Two questions, actually. First, why did you quit law school?”
Sophie blinked at the unexpected change in topic. She thought carefully about how to respond. Did she even know anymore? Her twenty-three-year-old self seemed like a distant stranger. “I don’t really know,” she said slowly. “It’s like one day I was contentedly going through the motions of the path I’d always been on, and the next day…everything just felt wrong.”
“So…you wanted to go into the restaurant business?”
Sophie laughed softly. “Very delicately put. And no, not really. I suppose you could say it was a very delayed form of rebellion. I’d done everything I was supposed to up until that point. Good grades, the “right” extracurricular, the right school, wholesome boyfriend…When I fell off that path, my parents flipped. There was a whole lot of talk about being respectable, and not a whole lot of dialogue about happiness. I guess in turn I tried to get as far away from their path as possible.”
“By becoming a cocktail waitress,” he finished for her.
“Well…it was that or a hooker,” she said with a sly smile.
He took a sip of wine. “Which leads me to my next question…Why are you still so preoccupied with what happened that night? It was a simple mistake, and we’ve already established that neither of us was at our best. Add to that a freak elevator malfunction. But you can’t let it go. Why is that?”
She let out a long breath and pushed her salad aside. “I’m going to need more wine for this discussion.”
He complied, refilling both their glasses without comment. Then he turned and studied her, his dark eyes latching on to hers with uncomfortable intensity.
She looked away and idly ran her finger along the stem of her crystal glass before speaking.
“So, the thing is,” she began slowly, “my career path hasn’t been exactly typical for a Stanford graduate. The alumni house is hardly pounding on my door begging for interviews.”
She took a swallow of wine, feeling his intent gaze still fixed on her profile.
“And I guess I’ve always known that I’m better at being liked than being admired,” she continued. “And I’m okay with that. Mostly. But being mistaken for a prostitute somehow felt like rock bottom, you know? Like I’d been able to handle the You can do better pep talks up to a point, but…”
She broke off, not knowing how to explain herself and worried she’d revealed too much.
He didn’t let her off the hook. “But when I thought you were at the bottom of the employment food chain, you doubted yourself and began to wonder if your family was right about you?” he guessed.
“Yup, that pretty much sums it up,” she said glumly.
“Hey,” he said softly, nudging his knee against hers.
She raised her eyes to his, ignoring the flip of her belly.
“You’re not inferior to anyone. You have skills that nobody else in your family has. Hell, the way you handled the Blackwells? I’ve never seen anyone wrap someone around their finger so efficiently. That kind of skill is worth something. You’re worth something.”