Merry and Bright(55)

And yet, the pathetic truth was, Matt had just been playing with her. It burned, she could admit, and burned deeply. All her life, she’d been the outcast. She’d been a chunky, nonathletic, clumsy kid in a house full of lean, coordinated, beautiful people. She hadn’t improved much as a teenager, and though her frenetic exercise and dieting had finally worked, leaving her much fitter now, the stigma had never left her. Inside, she was still the left-out, laughed-at, fat kid, the girl who was the object of a wager among the boys of the varsity basketball team—the winner was to be the first boy who could get a pair of her “granny panties” to hang as a prize in their locker room—the woman who even now men tended to keep their distance from.

The remembered humiliation still burned.

She heard the footsteps coming and turned toward the doorway just as another man appeared, also in a tux. Mask in hand.

Ned.

And in that flash, from a distance of twenty-five feet or more, Cami wondered how she could have ever mistaken the two men. Ned wasn’t as tall or built as Matt, instead a comfortable height for looking straight into his eyes, a nonthreatening bulk that brought to mind a scholar rather than a tough boxer or basketball player, as Matt’s physique did.

And that wasn’t the only difference between them.

There was the fact that the nice, kind, sweet Ned would never have taken advantage of a dark night and a mask, kissing a woman simply because the opportunity presented itself.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, and moved into the room, eyeing Matt inquisitively. “Tarino.”

“Kitridge.” Matt turned back to Cami. “Enjoy the ball.”

Enjoy the ball? She’d enjoy kicking his butt, that’s what she’d enjoy, but before she could tell him, he was gone.

When they were alone, Ned smiled curiously at her but, true to form, didn’t ask. There was no reason why that should annoy the hell out of her, but it did. Her dress was wrinkled across the front where she’d been mashed against Matt, her hair was half up and half down thanks to his busy fingers, her mouth was still wet from his.

And Ned didn’t appear to think anything of it. Frustrated, she grabbed her mask from the window seat and went to move past him, noticing that his tux was wrinkled, too—sort of endearing, really—and that his shoes—

Oh, my God.

His shoes were still black leather, identical to the ones Matt had worn, and still identical to the ones in the bathroom stall from earlier. Lifting her gaze to Ned’s face, she was further disconcerted to find him blushing slightly. His usually perfectly groomed hair was standing up on end, and he still wasn’t meeting her eyes. “You’re late,” she said slowly. “But you’re never late. You’re wrinkled, but you’re never wrinkled. You’re blushing, your hair is a mess . . .” She stared into his guilty eyes. “It was you in the bathroom. You’ve been making out with someone else.”

Ned shifted from one foot to the other, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Technically, it’s not someone else, if you and I have never made out.”

“But . . .” No, she refused to ask why not her, why it was never her.

“I’m so sorry.” His voice was rough with the apology she hadn’t gotten from Matt. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Wait.” She couldn’t think. Funny how her brain could work on an entire city plan, formulating for population and roads and more, and yet now, here, she couldn’t process a thought. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He was the office geek. She was the prize here!

“Cami, Jesus.” He squirmed. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just that you . . .” He lifted a shoulder. “You scare me.”

“What?”

“And Belinda—”

“Belinda. Belinda Roberts?” The daughter of the ex-mayor and a city mail clerk? Who was still in college and giggled when a guy so much as looked at her?

“She’s sweet and caring,” Ned said defensively.

Which, apparently, Cami was not.

“She makes me cookies,” he said. “Oatmeal raisin, because of my cholesterol.”

Cami could have done that. Probably. If she’d even known he had cholesterol issues.

And if she’d known how to work her oven.

“She doesn’t argue or disagree with me at work,” Ned said. “Or make me feel as if my ideas are stupid.”

“I don’t—” But she did. She couldn’t help it. Many of his ideas were stupid. And she had little to no tolerance for stupidity.

“I’m really sorry,” he said again, softly, with surprising thoughtfulness. “I really didn’t intend for you to find out like this. I wanted to come here and talk to you like adults.”

“Right,” she said. “Because adult is screwing the file clerk in the women’s bathroom.”

“Again, very sorry.” He looked desperate for a change of subject. “I intended to tell you tonight, but then I found you in here with Matt. What did he want anyway?”

“Uh . . .” Ms. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle. “Nothing.” If nothing meant the hottest, wildest kiss she’d ever experienced.

“Okay, then. Well . . .” More shuffling, this time accompanied by a longing look at the door. “I hope this isn’t going to be awkward.”