Teresa Southwick - The Beauty Queen's Makeover

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Yeah.”

“Be serious, Nate.”

“I am. About needing some help.”

“Not mine. I’m probably the last person Sandra Westport wants to have lunch with.” Kathryn had turned down a request from the other woman, only a week or two ago. It was highly unlikely Nate would benefit by her presence at lunch.

“You’d really be doing me a big favor if you’d come along,” he insisted.

“What part of no don’t you understand?” she asked.

“The N and the O. I’m very fragile,” he teased.

There was nothing fragile about him, not in the way his shirt hugged his muscular biceps or the masculine way he filled out his jeans. But when she looked closer, for a split second, his eyes showed a hint of hurt. Then it was gone and she wasn’t sure she’d seen it at all. Just her imagination. She didn’t have the power to wound him. They didn’t know each other well enough. And why in the world would he even want to get to know her better when he could have his pick of perfect women? A man with his blow-in-my-ear-and-I’ll-follow-you-anywhere-good-looks would not be bothered by a rejection from someone who looked like her.

“Fragile my foot,” she blurted out. “This isn’t about you, Nate.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“Then you’d be wrong. In spite of what you think, I’m not an insensitive jerk.”

“I don’t think that—”

“Obviously you do,” he interrupted. “In my own defense let me point out that I got it when you hid behind your sunglasses. I’m not so self-absorbed that I don’t get that you’ve been through something traumatic.”

“There’s no way you can understand what I’m feeling,” she retorted.

“There’s that jumping to conclusions thing again. How can you possibly know what I would or would not understand?”

“Come on. It’s not jumping to conclusions when the man looks like you.” She stared at him. “You belong in the sexiest lawyer section of People magazine’s sexiest man of the year issue. You couldn’t possibly know what it feels like to look in the mirror and know this is the best you’re ever going to look. You can’t understand what it feels like when people won’t look you in the eye because they see the scars and don’t know how to deal with it.”

He frowned. “This isn’t about other people. It’s about you, Katie. You can’t sit passively in a room. Life isn’t a spectator sport. It happens if you let it.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Nate. No one knows better than me that life happens. It happened all over my face and it isn’t pretty.”

“Now who’s twisting words?”

“I’m just saying, until you’ve walked in my shoes, don’t presume to know how I feel.”

“And I’m saying things aren’t always the way they seem. Have you ever heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”

“That’s baloney.”

One eyebrow rose. “The Katie I knew wasn’t a glass-is-half-empty person.”

That arrow sliced clear to her soul and drew blood. “I resent that. It’s not pessimism, it’s realism.”

“You say tomato, I say toe-mah-toe. You say potato—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“No, for mine.”

He looked so sincere, and her steadfast resolve began to waver. It had all seemed so simple before he showed up in the flesh. He’d accepted her turndown; she was okay with that. But now, seeing all that attractive flesh, engaging in stimulating verbal sparring, she wasn’t sure about anything. Except that suddenly the loneliness she hadn’t even acknowledged loomed black and frightening. She hadn’t realized how isolated and alone she’d felt since her accident.

He was there and she found his larger-than-life personality so very appealing, so very difficult to resist. Even for her—the ice queen. But she knew not resisting was a prerequisite for disaster. If she made the mistake of letting him close, the ugliness from her past was certain to come out and she simply couldn’t bear that after working so hard to bury it.

“Look—” he ran his fingers through his hair “—all I’m trying to say is that you can’t stand at a fork in the road indefinitely. Sooner or later you’ll get run over.”

This time she couldn’t suppress a smile. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You do motivational speaking on the side.”

He grinned. “Busted.”

“I knew it.” That boyish expression combined with his square-jawed, lean good looks, and perseverance and genuine likability propelled her stomach into a triple backflip.

“Actually I’m just a hardworking attorney who’s only interested in motivating you to go out with me.” Again he twisted and clarified.

“I don’t know, Nate.”

“I do.” He reached out a hand, but didn’t touch her. “Look, Katie, whether you believe it or not, I know how to take no for an answer. But I hope I won’t have to.”

She shook her head. “I just can’t go to lunch with you and Sandra.”

“Okay. Then how about just me?”

“What? I thought you needed to try and get her to cut the professor some slack.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ll see Sandra and try to get her to back off. Then we can have dinner tonight. Please?”

No was on the tip of her tongue, but Kathryn hadn’t counted on his ability to captivate her. Suddenly she was the one who didn’t understand the N and the O.

“All right. Dinner,” she said. “But, Nate, could we—”

“You order room service. I’ll be here about seven?”

She nodded. “Seven.”

When he was gone she closed her door and leaned against it. How was she grateful? She mentally ticked off the ways. He was sensitive to her need for privacy with these baby steps forward. But he didn’t know some of her hesitation was because this was her first step with a man since that awful night in college. He’d worn down her defenses with his charming verbal assault and she hoped she didn’t regret her decision. Still, she trusted him and for the life of her she couldn’t explain why.

But she didn’t need a mirror to know she was grinning from ear to ear. Defenses be damned. For the first time in a long time she was looking forward to an evening with a very charming and attractive man.

Nate was anticipating dinner with Katie that night and nearly missed the turn for the Italian restaurant where he’d agreed to meet Sandra Westport for lunch. He’d thought getting her phone number would be difficult until he talked to his paralegal, Rachel James. Nate had given her some time off to assist Professor Gilbert in locating a former student who might be able to help save his job at the university. She didn’t know it yet, but her time off would be with full pay even though suspicious Sandra had enlisted her support in her crusade for the truth. Whatever that was. At least Rachel had a phone number for the woman.

He parked and went inside, the smell of garlic and spices making his mouth water. Skipping breakfast did that to a guy. When he explained he was meeting someone, the hostess showed him to an outside table where Sandra was already waiting, sipping an iced tea.

While he’d been nosing around Saunders U, he’d seen her. Their paths had crossed in the last couple weeks and fortunately she hadn’t remembered him from college. But he couldn’t forget the beautiful blond, blue-eyed cheerleader who’d hung out at the Alpha Omega fraternity house with David Westport, her boyfriend. He wondered how much she remembered from that time. Did she know that he’d rigged the house’s security cameras to film in the bedrooms? And would the curious woman going after a good man like the professor believe Nate had been duped into using his expertise to do it?