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She wasn’t sure she wanted to answer as doing so might make him ask questions she didn’t want to answer. Because no way did she want to point out her flaws. He already seemed to continuously focus on her most obvious one. Her too-wide mouth.
Self-consciousness swamped her, bringing memories of being the kid who had to watch everyone else play, the kid who sat on the outskirts, the kid who hadn’t had friends until college, because who wanted to play with a freak wearing a brace that looked like something out of a horror movie?
Her parents had had her best interests at heart. She had to believe they had. That’s why they’d put her through one experimental medical procedure after another and so often hidden her away from the world with private tutors.
She glanced at the papers on her desk, the words blurring.
“Look.” Jared ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t come in here to put my foot in my mouth again.”
“No problem. Apology accepted,” she said, without glancing at him. Mostly because she didn’t think she could hide the pain in her eyes. Pain that ran deep and flowed freely at the moment, making her question why she’d ever thought she had a chance with a man like Jared. Why she’d ever thought he could look past her scars and see the person inside, the person who deserved love.
These days she rarely let her inner doubts show. At the moment she felt vulnerable, like every scar she had throbbed and was on public display beneath glaring spotlights.
“Why do I feel like I should say something more?” His soft question reached inside and touched the part of her already longing for him.
No matter how hard he tried, Jared couldn’t be completely cold. Did that mean he cared? Perhaps just a little?
She pasted on a smile that quickly turned real when she realized Jared was looking at her without the usual scowl on his face. Not that he returned her smile. He didn’t. But he didn’t glare at her with antipathy either.
Perhaps it was better that he pushed her away because she could never show Jared her back, never risk that pain. So why the goofy smile on her face that something in his gaze was different? Not so cold?
“Go to dinner with me.”
She blinked, not believing he’d asked. Not after how their last meal together had ended. However, she readily believed how quickly his scowl returned.
“I’m sorry,” he backtracked, clearly regretting his spur-of-the-moment invitation almost instantaneously. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Frustration at his immediate withdrawal filled her.
“Have I done something to make you not like me, Jared?”
He didn’t answer, seemed to be trying to figure out how to answer.
“Because if the way you treat me has to do with what happened ten years ago, because I kissed you, don’t you think it’s time to forgive me? I was only seventeen and didn’t have a clue on how to tell a man I wanted him. So I went with what felt right, and I kissed you. I didn’t have all the facts and what I did was wrong. I admit that.” Knowing she was going for broke and likely only going to embarrass herself, Chelsea met his wary gaze. “I’m not an inexperienced teenager any more. I’m a grown woman who knows what she wants. What I want is for this hot-cold treatment to end because your attitude confuses me and seems childish, considering how much time has passed.”
The panicked look he sometimes got came into his eyes. “I didn’t come in here to get into this.”
“Why did you come, Jared? Was it really to say you were sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Or did you want to see me? For some other reason perhaps?”
She expected him to get mad, to angrily leave her office much as she’d done earlier. Instead, he stood in front of her desk, looking confused, torn, thoughtful, like he really wasn’t sure.
“What other reason?” he asked.
Eventually, she sighed, gave him a soft smile. “That you’re as curious about me as I am about you. That you never forgot our kiss, and that’s why you act the way you do around me.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“All I did was ask you to dinner, Chelsea, then realized we shouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“We work together. Our going to dinner is a bad idea.”
