Her Unexpected Admirer Page 0,8
someone was going to pay dearly for such abuse.
Kate sighed. “It’s over,” she said, leaning her chin on the upright palm of her hand. “You looked very angry a moment ago, but that’s all gone now. What just went through your mind?”
Davis was astonished that she’d noticed. Most people said he was a man without emotions. He chuckled every time he read such a thing in a news article or magazine. It wasn’t that he was emotionless. He just didn’t put his feelings out there for others to see. But this slender beauty caught a flash of something he’d thought was well hidden.
He pushed that issue aside and focused on getting to know this mysterious woman in the bad suit and grandmother shoes. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me about yourself.”
She smiled and Davis felt a punch of something, his eyes sharpening on her delicate structure. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He didn’t like surprises and this woman had delivered one just by smiling!
Kate sighed and twirled her drink slightly, needing to look at something other than this man’s eyes. They were distracting and fascinating. “My day was fine until the last hour. Then it all came tumbling down.” She took another long sip of her drink, enjoying the way her shoulders no longer felt like they had a granite weight on them.
“What happened?” he asked, truly interested. Another surprise. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who would allow stress to get to her. He’d known many flighty women but somehow, she didn’t fit the stereotype. But he couldn’t place her in a category. Not yet, anyway.
Kate turned to stare at her drink. “I’m an accountant,” she explained, almost embarrassed to admit it. “But not a very good one, apparently.” She cringed as she thought back to her closet sized office and her father’s fury at her latest mistake.
“Why would you say that?” She dressed like an accountant, he supposed. Well, at least like the accountants he’d run into. He supposed that some accountants could be well dressed fashionistas but in his experience, they tended to lose themselves in the numbers and not worry so much about what they looked like.
Kate took another sip, needing the alcohol to continue with her admission. “Because I’m horrible with numbers. They just aren’t what my brain looks at,” she said. Her eyes flashed up to his, then down his magnificent body.
“What does your brain look at?” he asked, having caught the flash of her eyes.
She looked back down at her drink, fiddling with the stem of the glass. “Oh, I don’t know really,” she lied. “I guess I’m just wired incorrectly for the accounting field.” She wondered what her father would do if she told him she was quitting and would be painting full time from now on. She suspected he would be furious, but the idea suddenly had a lot of merit. Should she find another accounting job or just risk it all on art?
“Why do you stay in the job then?”
She shrugged. “It pays the rent.”
“Is that really what you want to do with your life?” he asked softly, his hand taking hers, the strong thumb rubbing against her fingers. “Do you really want to live a life doing what you hate?”
His hand was sending shivers along her entire body. She couldn’t believe how much just a simple touch was making her mind spin out of control. “Not really,” she whispered back up to him.
“Then why not follow your passions?” he asked.
She smiled nervously. “Passions don’t pay the rent.”
“They do if you are good at it.” He twisted her hand around, his thumb tracing patterns over the palm of her hand, causing her to shiver and some strange sensation pooled in her stomach, moving lower. It was almost embarrassing, that feeling.
“I’m good at something,” she replied, thinking of her art work and the check she’d just received.
Davis smiled slightly. “I bet you are.” His thumb moved higher, resting on the pulse beating at her wrist. “Tell me what your passions are.”
Her breath quickened and she blinked, trying to think of what his question was. It was hard to focus with his thumb doing that to her palm. Goodness, what was this man doing to her?
“Um….I’m very good at…” his thumb reached her wrist again and she stopped, staring down at his dark hand holding her pale one. It was so much larger than hers, so much stronger. The difference was fascinating. She