Chapter 16
“Um, I guess one more day.”
If Candace could survive the next twenty-four hours remembering the touch of this man’s lips while watching her sister fling herself at him. If Nolan was everything Michelle said, and if Candace could be convinced he wasn’t also a player, he really would be great for Michelle. Better than anyone Candace could have imagined her sister ending up with. She’d just stay in Rosehill the rest of her life.
“Gah, what time is it?” Michelle peered at her phone. “Yikes. I’m meeting Nick downtown in half an hour. Gotta go shower.”
She crammed peanut butter and toast into her mouth and grabbed her coffee to take upstairs, her legs flashing strong and muscular under the pink T-shirt.
Candace put her sister’s plate in the dishwasher, then went back to her Raisin Bran, eating quickly so she could also go upstairs and not be alone with this guy she didn’t know how to feel about anymore.
“How are you doing today, Candace?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Thanks.” She swallowed a mouthful. “Michelle’s been telling me about you.”
His eyes turned wary. “Good things?”
“Yes.” She frowned. “Why, is there something bad?”
Nolan laughed and shook his head. “You don’t let down your guard, do you?”
“Sorry. I’m still not over that first, um, encounter.”
“Mmm.” He held up a hand, put down his coffee. “I talked to my brother again this morning. Police are involved. My drink had been laced with…ready for this?”
“I think so.”
“Benzodiazepine. Also known as the date-rape drug.”
“Who would want to date rape you?”
He jerked his gaze to hers. “Is that an insult?”
“No! I was just—” She rolled her eyes when she realized he was kidding. He had her off-balance all the time. The feeling was unfamiliar and vulnerable. And challenging. And a little exciting. “Go on.”
“The culprit was the jealous ex-boyfriend of a woman, Annie, who I was, uh, talking to.”
She shot him a glance. “You mean, trying to hook up with.”
“Me?” He put his hand solemnly to his heart, looking so innocent she had to smile. “The upshot is, when I climbed into bed with you, Candace, I had no idea what I was doing.”
A snort of laughter came to her lips before she could suppress it. As far as she was concerned, he knew what he was doing better than any man she’d ever been with.
“Something’s funny?”
“No, nothing.”
“Come on, something.”
“Nolan …”
He nudged her shoulder with his. “Tell me.”
“Fine. The part where you said you had no idea what you were doing…” Blush, blush, mumble, mumble, why did she have to be either dorky or hysterical around this man?
“My God, was that a compliment? From you?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She blushed harder when his eyebrow quirked. “And no puns on that one, either.” He grinned, and she found herself smiling back, which felt suddenly natural and uncomplicated, a first where they were concerned. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he had been all along.
“Apparently I owe you an apology.”
“Yeah?”
“For assuming you were like all the other guys Michelle has brought into her life. Since she was about fourteen.”
“Sounds like enough of a record that you felt comfortable making snap judgments.”
“They’d always worked before.”
“And then I fell right into the stereotype that first night.”
“Yeah, kind of.” She ate another bite of cereal, then put the spoon down.
“One thing…”
“Ye-e-es?”
“You said you remember what happened. Between us. That night.”
“Ohh, yes.” Her body reacted as if he’d touched her. His voice was so… Steady, Candace.
“You really thought I was someone else?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He sighed deeply, though she could tell he was still enjoying himself. She wondered if he ever didn’t. He seemed like the kind of man who grabbed life by the glass half-full and hung on. Probably not hard to do when you were born into stability and got to stay there.
“I remember nothing after leaving the party. When I came to in bed with you, it was dark. I assumed you were the woman I’d been talking to at the party.
She’d been very…friendly.”
Candace sent him a look of schoolmarm disapproval which made him chuckle, which made her feel as if she’d won the lottery.
“I put pieces together and decided I’d brought her—i.e., you—home and that we’d been at it all night, I just didn’t remember.” His voice dropped lower. “Given how good you looked and felt next to me, I wanted to make sure there’d be something I would remember.”
“Oh…I see.” She really needed to concentrate on Raisin Bran or she’d turn into mush and pour onto the floor.
“But when I couldn’t wake you up, it seemed selfish and vaguely perverted to satisfy myself, so I just—”
“Yes, I know.”
“And now…” He grinned wickedly. “You owe me.”
“What?” She stopped melting instantly, stiffened in her chair. “You can’t be serious.”
“Candace.”
He’d gotten her. Again. Once more, she was walking the Nolan tightrope, always about to fall off one side or the other. “Right. You were kidding.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave her an unbearably sexy sidelong look. “I’ve been teasing you too much. But it’s been a long time since anyone thought I was trouble and it’s kind of fun.”
“For you, maybe.”
“C’mon, you’re not loving every minute of your time with me?”
She was, that was the problem. “I have decided you’re an okay guy.”
“Something in particular tipped you off?”
“Michelle promises you’ve been telling the truth. And I can sort of piece together what you said and make sense of it. And she said you…can afford to live here.”
He moved uncomfortably. “Oh. Yeah. That.”
“You didn’t want me to know?”
“It’s more fun when people don’t.”
“Why?”
“Assumptions.” The playful look was fading from his face. “Those snap judgments you love so much.”
She nodded, slid off the stool and took her unfinished cereal to the sink, afraid she was about to discover he was such a good guy that he didn’t want to be associated with the immediately—though shallowly—appealing aspects of wealth and power, that he wanted people to judge him for who he was, not what he had or represented.
Nolan Carrington was starting to seem too good to be true. Not in a choir-boy way, not at all, because he had that mischievous sense of humor and bad-boy sexuality spicing up what appeared to be solid character. Maybe even depth. A fabulous and rare combination.