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“How long have you been watching me?” Rowan fought the urge to wipe a hand over her mouth and do a visual check to make sure she didn’t have croissant crumbs all over the place.
“Not long. It’s interesting to see how focused you get.”
“Interesting how?”
“You seem to be an all or nothing kind of person. Total concentration on the task at hand.”
That was true enough.
“You’ll have lines before your time, the way you furrow that brow.”
“Lines just add character.” Were they really having a civil conversation about the lines on her forehead?
Gerard glanced away for a moment. “I’m usually around women who spend hours on their makeup and dress to the nines.”
Ouch. He hit her right in her insecurity without even knowing it. That had never been Rowan’s forte. She was more of a throw on whatever clothes were easiest to get to and slap some makeup on kind of gal. She struggled to keep up with the women he described. Another reason to steer clear of the man.
He didn’t like her type.
“It’s refreshing.”
Wait. What? “Did you say refreshing?”
“Yes.”
Rowan warmed beneath his gaze, which traveled her face, hair, shoulders, and below before returning to her face.
“I figured you were with the kind of woman you wanted to be with.”
He frowned. “Sometimes I have no choice. Sometimes I make errors in judgment.”
Had her “I’m perfect” boss just admitted to making mistakes? She pinched herself under the table even as she wondered why he felt he had no choice. Appearances? Was that what it boiled down to for him?
“You are refreshing,” he continued. “Beautiful in a natural way. Like this morning, without makeup. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. And those curls… I want to touch them, wind them through my fingers.”
Rowan ran her fingers over her ears, not sure she was ready to believe him.
“You heard me,” he said, smiling. “I’m attracted to you. You know that.”
Okay, now her eyes really did widen. “I thought, after dinner at the restaurant, you’d changed your mind.”
“Smoke and mirrors. And self-preservation. You were right that night, and you’re still right. I can’t follow through on…us.”
She wanted desperately to lighten the serious mood, like suggesting there was a medical reason. Anything to keep the finality of this conversation from happening. How could her heart thump so hard and stop beating all at the same time? She didn’t know what to do. Acting on their mutual attraction was an epically bad idea, yet every iota of her being said he was worth the risk.
Gerard was doing her the honor of being honest. He deserved the same in return.
“That could be a problem, then, because I’m attracted to you too.”
“I know.”
There was the arrogance she’d grown used to. She shook her head. “If I did decide to do this, give in to this, umm, mutual attraction, then why can’t you? Follow through.”
He scrubbed his face. “There are a several reasons. The biggest one being what I said the first day I met you.”
“About the fraternization.”
He nodded, and a small chuckle escaped. “I may have said that because I didn’t want to see you with anyone else, in the firm or outside of it.”
