Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes #1)(84)

He stiffened, the dark centers of his eyes sharpening with worry so intense it made her want to pull him close, promise him she’d make everything okay, wipe away the pain.

“It’s been twelve days.” It sounded like an accusation. “She seems to have decided to ignore that she’s sick. Maybe discharging her wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

The muscles down Trisha’s back tightened. Her hospital wasn’t a prison, but she didn’t have it in her to fight him today. “I think it needed to be done. I know my job.” If today went as she had planned, she’d get to take that worry away from his eyes. “As do you.” She looked at the Magic Stew. “This is . . . it’s . . . um . . .”

“Would you like some more?” he said, with a touch of impatience.

“It might kill me,” she wanted to say, but she nodded, channeling Oliver Twist again. Please, sir . . .

He brought her more.

“Thanks for staying,” she said as she started on the second bowl. “I mean . . . not that you stayed for me. I mean, I’m sure you wanted to spend time with Naomi.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Gah! Would he stop saying that? “You and Naomi—” the idiot who’d crawled inside her said; she was in a mood today.

“What is it with you wanting to pair me up with every woman you see within five feet of me?” He was in a mood today too.

“I do not!” She totally had.

“You thought Ashna and I had something. When clearly we don’t.” Their eyes locked and she felt things melting inside her.

“Okay, I did do that. But it doesn’t mean anything. I . . . I’m not great at relationships.” She laughed like someone who absolutely did not possess a brain. “My siblings call it emotional blindness.” She stood. She had never in her life told that to anyone who wasn’t related to her.

She took another desperate sip of her iced coffee. “I have to go.”

He stood too. “Dr. Raje, are you well?”

No! No, she wasn’t. She hadn’t been well since she had met him, since he had left his life behind to take care of his sick sister, since he had remained unshaken when faced with a gun, since she had taken one bite of his food.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his biceps bulging. Another merciless zing zapped through her. She felt paralyzed. Unable to move away from him.

Nisha was right, she had to do something about it.

She might explode and splatter all over the café if she didn’t.

“Okay, yes, I do that. I imagine everyone wanting to be with you. But do you want to know why that is?” Oh God, she had lost her mind. “No, wait, don’t answer that. I don’t know why I said that.”

“All right.” He stepped back. He’d caught on that she’d lost it.

“But you . . . you noticed it enough to say something about it.”

He didn’t respond. He had gone entirely still.

“What are you thinking?” she wanted to shout. “It’s because . . . because . . .” she said instead. “Because I’m attracted to you.”

Holy shit. She had not just said that out loud.

Instead of responding, he took another step away from her.

She pressed her hand into her belly. The coffee she was holding splashed against her suit, turning the buttercup to khaki in splotches. She put the glass down on the table and resisted the urge to slide under it.

Had she thought she was badass? Turns out she was just a straight-up ass.

He handed her a napkin and she pressed it into her jacket as he stood there silent, unmoving, his chest rising and falling under the fabric stretched across those wide wide shoulders.

Stop staring.

It felt like time had halted. It felt like nothing she’d ever experienced. She was light-headed and queasy and unsteady on her feet. “You didn’t slip something into my food, did you?” she said weakly.

His eyes went cold. Okay, maybe that had been the wrong thing to say.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I was making a joke. A bad one. I . . . I can’t seem to do anything right around you.” Someone help me. “I . . . I swear this doesn’t ever happen to me with anyone else. It’s . . . it’s just you. The way I feel around you . . .” This unbearable, hopeless pull as though the ground beneath her turned into a slope that slid toward him whenever he was near. “I can’t even imagine why, or when it happened or how. I mean . . . look at us! We have absolutely nothing in common. Not one thing.”

His face did not alter at all except for the slightest tightening of his chin that deepened the blasted dimple. And she knew she had said something wrong, something to freeze him even more. She wanted to take her words back, but that train had left the station. All her trains were hurtling off the tracks. They had run amok. She gave up and joined them. “Stop looking at me like that. I thought you valued honesty.”

She loved that he was honest with her, that he didn’t tiptoe around how differently they saw things. But they did see so much so differently. Their worlds were too far apart. “Surely you see why this would be utterly terrifying for me. I’ve never been with someone like you. We . . . us . . . us getting together . . . it would be a total disaster.”

DJ COULD NOT believe this was actually happening. Four days ago this woman had almost caused him to get shot, or at least to get arrested. And now she was propositioning him? Or doing something that seemed oddly like propositioning, but with none of the requisite joy of it.