An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,31
parents she vaguely remembered having. “I’ll bring it in.”
“Great. Now, how’s your shorthand, kid, because I’m ready to dictate that letter.”
Anna stood, shaking her head. “A letter. That’s funny.”
* * *
ANNA ARRIVED HOME to find Ben waiting on the steps of her building. It was hot and humid and he looked a little wilted, as if he’d been waiting a long time. She could only hope he hadn’t been here all day.
Part of her filled with dread. The fact that he was here meant they were mostly likely going to have another confrontation.
The other part of her was happy to see him, of course, and she hated that part like a nagging toothache. Just. Go. Away.
Finding a parking spot, she did a quick and efficient parallel maneuver and stopped the car within six inches of the curb like a proper city driver. When she approached him, she saw he had a stack of books and two brown bags on the step next to him.
“Please tell me you haven’t been waiting here since this morning or I might actually have to say I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I left once I realized if you came out any later, you would be late for work. You’re never late for work. You could have told me.”
“I told you last night I would take the bus.”
“You could have told me this morning.”
She could have. Only she didn’t want to send him a text because then he would have her new cell phone number. A number she’d purposefully changed after she’d left him as a way to make her feel more separated from him. So much for that strategy.
“Or I guess I could have called and confirmed,” he admitted more to himself than to her.
“You don’t have my new number,” she reminded him.
He sighed. “Anna, of course I have your new number.”
Right. Because he was Ben Tyler. Spymaster. Sometimes she forgot because, aside from the crazy things that happened every once in a while—like the current president of the United States calling to get his opinion on something, Ben was mostly a normal man.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to his stack of stuff and wanting to ignore his breach of her privacy.
“Books on pregnancy. I’ve gone through them and highlighted passages on morning sickness and the transitions that occur in the second trimester, which I think will make you feel better. I’ve also noted some questions in the margins that I’m hoping you can answer so I can better understand some things. Then I stopped at Chef Chen’s in Little China. I told Mrs. Chen about your morning sickness and she made up some special soup that she assures me will fix you right up.”
“That’s a lot of soup,” she said, desperately trying not to be affected by his attention.
“Mrs. Chen says I needed fixing up as well and threw in a quart of the house special lo mein.”
Her favorite. “Okay. Come on up.”
Might as well give in to the inevitable. Ben wasn’t going away peacefully. Besides that, Mrs. Chen was a genius with food and could cure anything from fever to the common cold with the right blend of spices and ginger. If she said this soup would make Anna feel better, then it would.
As she walked up to the second floor with him trailing, she considered how this meeting could have been awkward. After all, last night she’d let loose with everything she’d been feeling and holding on to for all those years. Usually the day after a big confession could be weird between two people, but Anna didn’t feel it.
Instead, she felt a little freer. Her secret was out there. She’d said it. Forget pride and forget rejection. Forget it all. She loved Ben Tyler. And it had felt good to say it because it was real and had been a part of her life for a long time.
She. Loved. Ben. Tyler.
He couldn’t make her unsay it. He couldn’t do anything but hear it.
The only thing that really pissed her off about the confession was that while he’d been staring at her as if she’d hit him with a two-by-four—looking more stunned than he had after she told him she was pregnant—she still actually thought he would say it back. It was crazy. It was insane. But she’d waited for it anyway.
She knew the man he was. She knew he was self-contained and emotionally unreachable. She was slowly coming to grips with the fact that her love could be entirely predicated on the