“Yours,” he said. “I figured you for a coffee-as-lifeblood woman.”
What he’d said was so close to what she’d been thinking that she smiled. He smiled, too, and she turned her smile into a frown as she filled the mug.
“You’re very sure of yourself, Gentry. Doesn’t it ever occur to you that you might be wrong?”
“Rarely.”
She turned and glanced at him. He was smiling again. It was a devastatingly wicked smile, but she’d be damned if she’d respond to it.
“And when it does occur to me,” he said quietly, “I’ve even been known to admit it.”
“Really.”
Her tone was flat and cool, but he knew he had her attention.
Do it, Gentry. Just say that you’re sorry. You don’t have to go into detail. You don’t have to grovel. You just have to say two words—I’m sorry— and then you can excuse yourself, go hide in your office, put last night in a deep, dark closet where it belongs.
“I made an ass of myself last night.” It wasn’t what he’d intended to say, but it was accurate. “I know I must have looked like an idiot, but—”
“Excuse me?”
“Falling down the way I did. Like a clumsy—”
She slapped the mug on the counter.
“Is this an apology?”
“Well, yeah. I mean—”
“An apology about you looking foolish.”
“Yes.” He hesitated. She didn’t seem pleased. But he’d apologized. What more did she want?
“I fell, and I know—”
“That’s why you’re apologizing? For falling?”
His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“And the rest of it?”
“The rest of what?”
Lissa stared at him. Was he serious?
“Oh, I don’t know. The way you bit my head off for being foolish enough to offer to help you.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t need help. I got up on my own just fine.”
“And what you said to me. I suppose that was just fine, too.”
“What I said—”
“About the reason you—you fell. About why you were in my room in the first place.”
He looked blank. Then she could almost see him finally figuring it out. To her great satisfaction, color striped his high cheekbones.
“Oh. That.”