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Dammit, I was Lyndsey Saunders. I had my pick of any man I wanted—the mistress of seduction. I did not blather on like a fool in front of a mildly attractive man.
Well, not mildly attractive. The man could be a freaking underwear model. If they ever did a fireman’s calendar, I would totally buy one.
“I just mean, I have a lot on my mind lately.” I stammered through my response, turning back to speak to the lady behind the counter. “Pick up order for Elizabeth, please.”
The woman nodded and went off in search of my mother’s lunch order. The heat of the man’s body behind me struck a nerve in the core of my stomach. My pulse hammered in my throat, and I took a breath to steady myself.
A second woman appeared from behind the counter, craning her neck around me to see the firefighter. “Hunter, what can I get you?”
“Hey, Jenny,” he said, and passed in front of me to approach the glass case holding all the pastries. “I’ll take two of these and one of whatever’s just come out of the oven.”
It took all the strength within me not to sneak a peek at his ass, and yet, I still failed. I wasn’t mad though. I’d never been so swiftly rewarded for doing the wrong thing in my life. A man like this was always a problem. Perfectly put together, and perfectly aware of how attractive he was to women. He was not the type of man I should be pursuing at the moment—gorgeous with the ability to set my body alight with one look, one touch.
Temporary.
They always were. Men like him were more interested in the chase than they were with settling down. Not that I was entirely interested in settling down either. For that very reason, he was everything I should avoid. Especially if I wanted my parents to take me seriously.
But that ass though.
I bit my lip and tried to focus on other things. My eyes flew to the menu, to the basic Parisian decor, anything to distract from the well-crafted male specimen in front of me.
“Enjoying the view?” he asked suddenly.
My heart tripped. Warmth flooded my cheeks. There was no way he had seen me. I looked up at him, but he was still staring down at the pastries in the glass case. “What?”
He tapped one knuckle against the glass, then turned to face me. That same devilish smile curled his lips upward, and I had to remind myself to breathe. “The glass reflects, you know.”
This was not my week.
I flipped one errant curl back over my shoulder. He could make well-founded accusations all he wanted, but there was no way I was admitting to ogling him like some cheap piece of meat. “And you just assumed that I was looking at you?”
“Weren’t you?” He tilted his head to the side. “It’s ok. You wouldn’t be the first.”
I turned my head to the side. I couldn’t look at him. If I wasn’t wearing so much damn makeup, my face would probably look like a tomato. “I’m sure.”
“It’s okay to admit you’re attracted to me,” he said.
The blush ran deeper. He was so full of himself. And yet, he wasn’t wrong.
“I never said—,” I stammered, trying to concoct some other response that didn’t have me sounding like a ten-year-old girl denying she likes her secret crush. My head twisted from side to side, searching for the nearest exit. There was only one way out of this situation. “I need to go.”
I made it halfway toward the door, before he said, “You’re leaving without your pick-up order?”
Crap. I was stuck there, standing in that awkward conversation with a man too full of himself for his own good. At least until the girl found my parents’ order and would finally put me out of my misery. What was taking her so long anyway?
“In all seriousness,” he said, his voice losing the mocking tone from before. “How have you been?”
He sounded so sincere. It triggered an emotion deep in my chest, one locked away for good reason. It’d been so long since someone actually asked me about my well-being and actually cared. Beyond Aly and my grandmother, all the other people in my life felt so ephemeral, so temporary.
I liked it that way. Or so I thought. For as long as I could remember, it was the only way I knew how to be. My parents were not the loving, touchy-feely sort to inspire me to act the same way. All the men I’d dated in the past were just as equally distant. I admit, I also preferred it that way. Less mess. Less confusion.
Only now, I felt different. The way he asked, as if he genuinely cared, wove through me like a cozy sweater. I felt warm, wanted.
Like I mattered.
I wonder how many people he’d pulled out of burning buildings. How many lives had he saved, then taken the time to follow up with a stranger? Perhaps, I was overthinking all of this. He could just genuinely be a nice guy. I could just be so out of touch with how people really behaved, I no longer recognized true kindness in a stranger.
“What?” I asked, finally. “Healthwise? Emotionally?”
