When he’d picked her up from her apartment she’d been wearing neutral lip gloss, but she’d chewed it off in the first five minutes and she didn’t want to risk reapplying it in case he saw her and misinterpreted the gesture. If he’d thought her cooking for him on the first night had been a romantic gesture, then presumably lip gloss would be tantamount to a proposal.
He sat opposite her, watching her expectantly, but she had absolutely no idea what he was expecting.
Hopefully not riveting conversation because her mind had emptied the moment she’d opened the door and seen him standing there. He filled her doorway with his broad shoulders and sexy smile and for a moment she’d been unable to catch her breath, as if she’d run up four flights of stairs carrying a load of shopping.
She still felt that way, and she had no idea what to say.
When she’d started internet dating she’d compiled a list of conversation topics. The weather, travel, books, life goals—she called them emergency silence fillers. So far she hadn’t needed to use them because the men she’d dated had been happy enough to fill silence to the point of overflowing until she’d been ready to beg them to stop talking.
Ethan was different.
The moment they were seated, he leaned forward. “Tonight, there is only one rule.”
There were rules? “Which is?”
“No escaping through the bathroom window.” Humor glinted in his eyes. “If something I say offends you, tell me. Don’t jump.”
“I promise.”
And just like that the tension was broken. Everything that followed was easy.
Ethan was calm, relaxed and entertaining. His idea of conversation wasn’t to deliver a monologue, but to engage her on whatever topic he raised. He asked her opinion and listened to her answers, and before she knew it she was talking about everything under the sun, from subjects she’d struggled with at school, to how being a twin had been the best thing that could have happened to her. She told him about the time Fliss had beaten up Johnny Hill because he’d refused to stop bullying her about her stammer. She’d been suspended from school as a result, and still had a scar on her head to show for it. And she told him about her parents’ divorce, and how she wished it had happened years before it did, and how she’d thought Daniel would never get married and how thrilled she was that he’d met Molly, who was wonderful and knew everything about relationships (even though she’d avoided having one of her own until she’d met Daniel) and had even had a book published.
And all the time she talked she was aware of Ethan listening, adding the occasional comment or observation, making sure her water glass was filled and that she was enjoying the food.
They ate grilled shrimp and zucchini, followed by a delicious chicken dish, but she barely noticed the food because she was either talking or listening. And for Harriet, the night wasn’t about food. It was all about the man sitting across from her.
She told him about her summers in the Hamptons. About the puppy her grandmother had rescued when Harriet was nine, and how she’d taken care of it herself for two months. How she’d asked her mother if they could take the puppy home, but been told her father would never allow it. And she talked about more recent events, when she’d had to work hard to persuade Fliss to open up to her.
Ethan told her about growing up in a family of doctors. How people had knocked on the door on a Sunday when they were in trouble, how the phone never stopped ringing.
It was a totally different experience from her other dates when she hadn’t been remotely interested in the person sitting across from her. Then, all she’d thought about was getting away as fast as possible. This time all she could think about was that she didn’t want the evening to end.
She realized that far from not talking, she’d done nothing but talk and she clamped her mouth shut, embarrassed.
He gave her a searching look. “What’s wrong?”
What was wrong was that she didn’t want this date to be pretend. She wanted it to be real. She wanted to be sitting across from him, hearing about his day and talking while she told him about hers.
And then she wanted to go home with him, rip all his clothes off, and do things Harriet Knight had never done in her life before.
She thought about the night she’d undressed him, the glimpse of his hard strong body. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“Harriet?”
“Sorry? What? Yes—” Please don’t let her have said any of that out loud. “What did you say?”
“I asked what was wrong.”
She’d got her fantasy mixed up with reality, that was what was wrong. “I realized I’ve been doing that thing I hate. Talking nonstop without coming up for air.”
“You weren’t talking nonstop. I talked too.”
“Not as much.” And she was mortified. He’d probably been thinking all the things she’d been thinking when she sat across from those men who didn’t know when to be quiet. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because I found it interesting. I find you interesting. I didn’t want to stop you.”
“It was a monologue.” She knew her cheeks were pink. This was why she didn’t use blush. Combined with her own natural tendency to color up at the slightest hint of an awkward situation, she’d end up looking like a clown.