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“They’d lose you? On purpose?” He seems angry.
“No. Not on purpose,” I say quickly. “I’d get lost. Accidentally. I’d wander off because I’d get distracted by a bird or I’d start to collect bugs and frogs and turtles. But they’d get blamed because they were older.”
“They’d get in trouble because they couldn’t find you?”
I nod. “Or because I got stung by a bee. Or bitten by a snake.”
His eyes widen. “Yeah. I can understand that.”
“But it wasn’t their fault.” I sigh. “But they got to the point they would stop inviting me to go play. They were fine with me staying behind to read in the house, or mess around in Cora’s greenhouse because then they wouldn’t get into trouble.”
My grandmother’s best friend grew everything from vegetables to flowers to herbs. She made a lot of her own lotions and salves and treated everyone in town with her natural remedies. Cora’s greenhouse had been like a treasure trove to me.
“And now they make you nervous when you have to get up in front of them?”
“I get nervous up in front of any crowd,” I tell him honestly. “It’s just not something I’m good at. And when I know people in the crowd are thinking about how different I am from them, it makes it worse.”
He watches me for a long moment, and I wonder why I told him all of that. Dammit. He saw me throw up and then ran his hands through my hair and now I’m telling him all my secrets? What’s wrong with me?
It probably has something to do with the fact that his hands are still on my shoulders and the heat from his skin against mine is scrambling my brain.
“I’m very different from most of the people I speak to,” he finally says.
That isn’t hard to believe. Even without the prince thing, I sincerely doubt many people have Torin O’Grady’s combination of good looks, charm, and confidence. “But you don’t think about that?” I ask.
“I do, actually.”
“It doesn’t make you nervous though?”
“No.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because I know that what I’m saying is important. Either to them or to me. So the other stuff doesn’t really matter.”
Cognitively, I know he’s right. If what I’m saying is important, it shouldn’t matter what the people listening think of me.
It doesn’t help to know that.
“But there are people in the audience judging if you should be saying whatever you’re saying, if you’re good enough, if you deserve it,” I say.
Of course, that all isn’t about the speech I’m about to give at my sister’s wedding reception. I’m her sister. Of course, I’m supposed to give this toast.
But the other times I’ve been asked to speak, and the times in the past I’ve had to give speeches and have been sick about it, paralyzed in front of my audience, embarrassed down to the toenail on my pinky toe, have been about being judged by my audience.
He gives me a slow smile.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“What?” I insist. That smile is full of…something.
“I just…” He shrugs. “I always think I deserve to be the one speaking.” His smile grows.
But it’s self-deprecating and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything sexier.
I can’t help the little laugh that escapes me. “That must be nice.”
