Page 67 of Touch of Class

“Trust me. I may’ve made a terrible miscalculation here, but I won’t repeat past mistakes. I’m not going to jeopardize my job or my family again.”

His face softened. “This isn’t the same as last time.”

“Because I’ve learned my lessons, and because I know exactly what Gillian’s capable of. Any insanity brought on by this kiss will be the temporary kind.”

“Okay, let’s pretend that’s true, and in two days you’ll compartmentalize the best first kiss of your entire life, then never take that neatly packaged memory to the office again.”

“Not pretending,” she corrected. “I can do it.”

“Sure, sure. But what about her?”

“What about her?”

“You weren’t having this earth-altering kiss alone. What if she, even in all her grace and practice and self-regulation, is sitting in a car somewhere losing her shit because she simply can’t make sense of what you did to her?”

Daphne’s chest tightened, and she blinked away the residual haze of lust and surprise. In the rush of her own emotions, she hadn’t paused to process Gillian’s reaction, but Hugh’s comments sent a portion of tonight’s memories rushing back. Just as clearly as she could still feel Gillian’s lips on her own, she pictured her standing back, strong, stoic, centered.

“Gillian is fine,” Daphne said, suddenly feeling completely sober. “She got exactly what she wanted. Closure. The end.”

Hugh shook his head. “You don’t know. She’s not always easy to read. She projected those unflappable vibes for years, all while harboring a whole lot of big feelings about something you’d basically forgotten.”

“Yeah.” Daphne ran a hand through her hair and shook off some of her lethargy. She’d already thought of that. “Which is why I asked her, right afterward, when my whole world was still spinning, if she got the answers she was looking for.”

“Good for you. Way to break the patterns and face things head-on. What’d she say?”

Daphne forced a smile and unbuckled her seat belt, feeling very much like she could walk, or perhaps run away, but Hugh placed a gentle hand on her arm, and she let it anchor her enough to say, “She said all she felt after the kiss was peace.”

Hugh sighed. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. What else was there to say? He got it. He always understood. There was nothing worse than feeling the thrill and confusion and elevated emotions of something that could’ve been an entirely new beginning only to have the woman across from you view the same event as a calm and quiet end.

Fifteen

Gillian was in her office when she heard the door to the waiting room open. Glancing at her clock, she noted it was nearly 3:30. Not a time any of her colleagues usually took appointments, and it occurred to her that Izzy might drop by after school.

Smiling at how much she’d come to look forward to homework time, she pushed back from her desk and headed out, surprised that instead of finding a preteen with a backpack, her eyes landed on a woman in a Cornell sweatshirt.

“Hello,” the woman greeted warmly.

“Hi,” Gillian answered. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here for an appointment with Daphne, but I’m about fifteen minutes early. It’s a habit of mine.”

“If you’re not five minutes early, you’re late?” Gillian asked.

The woman chuckled. “Who told you? A coach or a drill sergeant?”

“Coach.” Gillian pointed at the woman’s sweatshirt. “From there. Are you a fellow Big Red Bear?”

The woman’s eyes lit up, and she extended her hand. “Lynn Miller, Cornell softball, shortstop, biological sciences, Class of too-old-for-us-to-know-anyone-in-common.”

Gillian laughed. “I won’t push, but I’m Gillian DeGarmo, psychology and basketball.”

“With legs to your chin like that, I’m not surprised. How’d you end up in Buffalo?”

“Grad school.”

“Me too,” Lynn said enthusiastically. “Came to UB for my PhD and stayed to teach, mostly genetics and bioinformatics.”