Me And Mr. I.T. (Kupid's Cove Book 2) (14 page)

“This was before the shooting and heart surgery I’m assuming.”

“It was, but things change and the ante was upped. I’m not willing to put her at risk to have a child. I can’t lose her.”

“Maybe that’s all she needs to hear, sir. Ahem, Gideon,” I corrected myself. “Maybe she just needs to hear that you understand, and it’s killing you that she’s in so much turmoil over this when all you really want is her.”

“I’ve told her that hundreds of times.”

“And what did you say after that?”

He was quiet again for a few beats. “I always tried to come up with a solution to starting a family, which only reinforced that I didn’t understand at all. Damn. You’re right. I made things worse instead of better.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, boss. You’re not a woman and you aren’t a woman with a chronic medical condition. There will be growing pains. Tell her you love her, let her be sad, and don’t offer suggestions to fix this. Offer your love and tell her you don’t need anyone else in the family to be happy because you have her. Even if it’s not true, say it. It’s what’s she needs to hear.”

He laughed a little. “It’s true, Ellie. I would give up everything, as long as I got to keep her. I’ll be heading home in a bit. Thanks for the coming to Jesus meeting. I guess I needed it and didn’t even know it.”

“Give her a hug for me. I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on here,” I promised, then hung up.

“What is it like to be a woman with a chronic medical condition?” Mr. I.T. asked me from the right. I didn’t see him or hear him come in and I jumped, almost landing on Slick until he grabbed my arm.

“You have
got
to stop doing that!”

“Stop doing what?” he asked, moving Slick to the desk by the window.

“Sneaking up on me.”

“I wasn’t sneaking up on you. You were on the phone and I didn’t want to interrupt. I was in plain view.”

I threw my hand up. “No, you weren’t. I’m blind in that eye, remember?”

“You can’t see anything?” he asked, sitting next to me and I moved a little further away from him.

“Do you understand what blind means?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yes, but I thought you still had some sight in it. Anyway, I’m going to assume you were talking to our fearless leader.”

I nodded, turning to face him. “Katie called me on Skype. Yesterday her doctor found one of the holes in her heart was still leaking, so they repaired it. She’s at home recovering.”

His shoulders slumped. “Damn, like she hasn’t had to deal with enough surgery.”

“At least this one was simple, she said. A short recovery and she’ll be up and going again.”

“Doesn’t seem like you were giving Gideon advice on Katie’s surgery.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was giving him advice on thinking like a woman. I am one, so it’s not that hard.”

He shook his head at me and laughed. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk in circles?”

“I minored in it at college.”

He snorted. “I honestly love your sense of humor. Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving and ready to get out of this room. I was thinking about dinner on the patio tonight. I can keep my glasses on and not embarrass you.”

He reached out and rubbed his thumb over my brow the way he had multiple times over the last twenty-four hours. “I’m never embarrassed being seen with you. You’re gorgeous even as the Frisbee Warrior.”

He stood and held his hand out. When I set mine in his it felt different when he curled his hand around it. As we walked to the door, hand-in-hand, I figured out what it was. It wasn’t him, or his hand, it was my heart.

He laid his napkin on the table after finishing his surf and turf dinner with fries, instead of a baked potato. I, on the other hand, had gone for Hawaiian saimin soup, in light of the pain and difficulty I still had with chewing. The bowl came to the table topped with shrimp, scallions, pea pods, carrots and soba noodles, nicely garnished with a sliced hardboiled egg. I wish I could have eaten all of it, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach.

“That was so good. The chef here knows how to make the perfect saimin soup,” I commented as I finished my wine.

He had his glass and was reclined too, one leg crossed over the other as he watched the ocean just over my shoulder. “I noticed you didn’t have as hard of a time keeping it from dribbling down your face. I guess that’s a good sign.”

“It’s a very good sign. I want this to heal quickly so I can get my contact back in and look normal when I have to be on television.”

“Why do you need the contact in to look normal?” he asked as he set his glass on the table. “Other than the bruising and little bit of swelling around your eye you look perfectly normal. Beautiful, in fact, so I don’t understand what the problem is.”

I sighed and made eye contact with a potted plant over his right shoulder. “The eye either freaks people out or fascinates them. Either way, they aren’t focusing on what I’m saying. That’s a big problem when my job is to promote the hotels.”

“So why don’t you only wear the contact for work? I’ve never seen you without it before now.”

“I told you this already.”

He interrupted me. “I know, the contact protects your eye from the sunlight, but they make these things called sunglasses.”

I sighed and set my glass down. “You just don’t understand and I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good dinner trying to explain something you’ll never truly get; so can we drop it?”

He shook his head slightly. “I want to understand. So if I’m wrong about wearing sunglasses, then please tell me why.”

I leaned forward and looked around to make sure no one was overhearing our discussion. “You know how your pupils constrict when it’s bright and dilate when it’s dark?” He nodded, so I went on. “This eye,” I said pointing to the right one, “doesn’t change, the pupil always remains dilated. While it’s true that I’m blind in the eye, it still lets light in and that makes it photosensitive. The only way to fix that is to block off part of the pupil with the contact. The contact serves two purposes, for cosmetic reasons, because it makes my eyes match, but it also removes the sensitivity to light.”

“But wouldn’t sunglasses do the same thing if you had UV blocking lenses?”

I nodded. “Absolutely, but I can’t go walking around inside buildings with sunglasses on. Sunlight is only one of the causes of the photosensitivity, Maltrand. Things like fluorescent lights, movie theaters and the bright lights from the screen, and even computer screens can cause the problem. When I don’t wear the contact, I get a headache easily. That’s why I stayed in the room today and didn’t come outside until it was dark.”

I saw the moment he understood and he reached for my hand. “I’m sorry. You were right; I didn’t understand. I thought you only wore it because you didn’t like the way it looked.”

“I don’t like the way it looks, and if I didn’t have the photosensitivity in it, I would probably still wear it for the cosmetic reasons. Logically I know that makes me vain, but emotionally I can’t handle the staring. I remember how bad it was as a kid before I got the lens. I cried every night. I can’t go back to that.”

He picked up my hand and kissed it. I was sure to the other diners on the patio it looked like a husband and wife having a romantic dinner. Strangely, and rather inexplicably, I wouldn’t mind that being the case, but it wasn’t, and I had to remember that.

“I won’t bring it up again, but I want you to know it doesn’t bother me, so if you need to take it out and go without it in the suite in the evening, don’t be afraid. We can keep the lights low, so you don’t get a headache.”

I smiled at him, a genuine smile of gratefulness. “Thank you.”

He let my hand go and pointed toward the beach. “Do you feel up to going to the beach for the live music?” The breeze blew off the water and ruffled his hair just enough to make it looked mussed and casual. “No Frisbees. I promise.”

“As long as you don’t mind being seen with the Frisbee Warrior, I would love to go. If we go back to the suite, I’ll want to work.”

He signed his name on the bill for dinner and handed it to the waiter then turned back to me. “I know, that’s why I asked.”

He wore his Mr. Smarty Pants grin when he stood and held his hand out to help me up from the chair. We walked down the stairs to the sand beach side-by-side, our hands swinging between us. Walking in sand was hard for me, so I acted a little bit drunker than I actually was. He wrapped one arm around my waist and his other held my elbow as we walked toward the outdoor stage surrounded by tiki torches.

He helped me onto one of the wooden benches in the back, watching as the hula dancers did the age-old dance to the music of the islands. It was relaxing and I laid my head on his shoulder watching the undulating grass skirts. My mind was in so many different places, I was having a hard time keeping them sorted. It was with Katie, it was with Lei and the excitement of her new position, and it was with little Hope, wondering if she was okay or if she ever settled down for the one person in the world who could love her in her most vulnerable moment. It was also in the moment with this man whose cologne was singing an undisputable song of sexiness the longer we sat there together.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, rubbing my shoulder. “You just went stiff as a board.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, though I doubted he believed me.

He looked down at me and then leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I’m going to kiss you now. I see a bunch of hotel employees here, and we should put on a good show.” He leaned away from my ear and went straight to my lips. He kept the kiss PG, but it felt tender and loving. I hoped anyone looking on thought the same thing.

He ended the kiss torturously slow, as though he wanted me to remember that he was the only one who could give me that kind of feeling. When his lips fell away from mine, he stood and held out his hand. “Dance with me?”

I looked up at him standing there so handsomely, the wedding band glinting off one of the torches near us.

“No one else is dancing,” I whispered and he winked, taking the hand I wouldn’t give him.

“Then we’ll start a new trend.”

He pulled me into him and we turned in the sand a few times just as the song finished.

“Looks like we have some lovebirds in our midst this evening,” the band director said into the microphone. “Let’s slow it down a little a bit. Feel free to join them.”

I looked up into Maltrand’s face and he had that grin on it that said, ‘I told you so’. It brought a sneaky smile to my face and he laughed, hugging me tighter as he twirled me in a rocking motion that would have made me lose my balance, if he hadn’t been holding me.

“It’s beautiful out here tonight, but you, you’re stunning,” he said, twining his fingers in mine and holding them behind my back.

“Sure, the Frisbee Warrior is stunning. Thanks for trying though,” I said, laughing a little as we settled into a rhythm.

“You’re the most stunning woman here tonight,” he said, running his hand up my back. “Maybe it’s the moonlight shining on your hair, maybe it’s the way you fit into my arms, or maybe it’s that I’m finally getting to know the real you. Then again, maybe it’s all three. All I know is I’m having a hard time remembering to breathe when you’re this close to me.”

Only God knows how much I wanted to believe him. That part of me who has never heard a man say those things, and actually mean it, ached for it to be true. I’ve surrounded myself with the kind of men that would be happy to date me until they found someone younger, prettier, and smarter to date. It’s possible I drove them to find someone else, though. I had a tendency to keep men at arm’s length, even the ones I slept with. Maybe that was how I protected myself from falling in too deep with any of them. Until now, when Mr. I.T. came along, and refused to leave. He’s been trying to break through my defenses for so long. Tonight it felt like he made some significant cracks in the walls around my heart.

“As much as I would like to say I don’t feel the same way, I would be lying,” I said as the rustling wind blew across us.

He held me tighter and spun me around until he went back to the slow steps and laid his lips near my ear. “I’ll take it, for now.”

I felt a shiver cascade through me, and it didn’t have anything to do with the breeze. When the song ended he led me back to the empty bench and I sat on the end, leaning into him again as they picked their hula dance music back up right where we had interrupted them by being ‘lovebirds’.