secret smile, a smile that made him regret being born. Because if he hadn’t been born, he wouldn’t have become a priest. He wouldn’t have given up secret smiles from prim-looking women that he wanted to unravel. He was full of regrets when she smiled at him, because he knew her smiles weren’t for him.
They were for guys like the one she’d come into the bar with the other night.
“How was your date?” Oddly, his question made her secret smile disappear.
Sasha made a rather inelegant noise. “It was fine.”
“Just fine?” He was stupid for asking, but his curiosity about what kind of man a woman like Sasha would fall for ate at him. It goaded him into dancing on the edge of propriety.
“Yeah, you know how—” She stopped, seeming to remember whom she was talking to. “Well, dating is hard. It’s hard to find someone you click with, and it’s rare when it happens right off the bat. Sometimes I wonder . . .”
When she trailed off, he debated whether he should say anything. On the one hand, she seemed distressed about her date just being fine. On the other hand, he was relieved. But he shouldn’t be relieved. It was not as though he could expect her to stay single. He was the one who’d made that vow. “You should give it another try. Sometimes it takes more than one date to get to know someone well enough to know if you’re interested.”
She looked up at him, her gaze sharper than he’d ever seen it. “How would you know?”
He liked it when she had her back up like this. Like, how dare he give her advice? And she was right; he had no business telling her how to live her life. She wasn’t a part of his flock. They weren’t even friends. But the way she looked at him made blood pump through his veins—it made him feel alive. And although he knew he shouldn’t even get a thrill out of talking to her, he smiled. “I wasn’t always a priest.”
His voice was lower and more suggestive than it had needed to be, and she flushed again. This was going nowhere quickly, so he decided to get to the subject at hand.
“So, did Hannah give you the lowdown?”
Sasha looked at the sheaf of papers on her lap. “Yes, she said that you need to raise twenty-five thousand dollars by the end of the summer, or the pre-K program shuts down.”
The furrow in her brow was supremely cute. If he were a different man, he wouldn’t be able to resist smoothing it out with his thumb. He cleared his throat again. “Do you need a lozenge?” she asked, reaching for her bag.
“Uh, no.” Patrick shook his head. “You’re correct about the situation. We’ve never had such a large budget shortfall before, and Jack offered your help. If you’re too busy with Hannah sick, I totally understand if you can’t spare the time.”
“Oh no.” It was Sasha’s turn to shake her head. “I did research on your program before I came over here. It’s the only one in this part of the city that offers affordable pre-K education for kids with low incomes and special needs. It needs to stay open.” She flexed her hand and hit her thigh a few times for emphasis, and any reservations he had about working with her would have to dwell in the back of his mind—exactly where he’d put the consistent ache she caused whenever they were in the same room.
She understood how important this program was to St. Bart’s— and to him. There was no way he was going to let his inconvenient and unwanted feelings for her interfere with saving the preschool.
They could absolutely keep this chaste and professional. They had to. Sasha passed him a sheet of paper with a list of options. “I took the liberty of putting together a list of possible fundraising opportunities. Hannah and I can call on some of our other clients to pitch in, because it would be great PR for them.”
“Helping out small children isn’t satisfying enough?” he asked, knowing that Sasha would give him a look that partially unspooled his intention to maintain forbearance around her from just moments ago.
“I’ll definitely remind them that God is—you know—involved,” she said with a wave of her hand that should not have made him feel anything, but most definitely did. “But they will mostly care how good helping underprivileged children will look next time they have