Sleepless in Manhattan (From Manhattan with Love 1)

Sunset in Central Park

by Sarah Morgan

“WHEN DID YOU last go on a date?”

“Me? Oh...” She hesitated, knowing that her answer wasn’t going to paint a picture of her as the epitome of urban sophistication. “Well—I don’t know—I’ve been busy—I don’t date that much.” What was the point in lying when he already knew she wasn’t a party animal? Her shoulders slumped. “When I date I almost always regret it, so I’m just as happy spending the evening thinking about plants.”

He removed his sunglasses slowly. “Why do you regret it?”

His eyes were the most incredible blue—warm, interested...and focused on her.

She felt as if her insides were slowly melting. “I’m not good at it.”

“It’s a date. The only requirement is to spend time with someone. How can you not be ‘good’ at it?”

The fact that he’d even asked her that question revealed the massive gulf in their life experience and expectations, as well as how little he knew about her dating history. And how little he seemed to understand her hang-ups despite the whole glasses incident. And why would he? Matt was confident and self-assured. Dating was unlikely to be something that made him consider therapy.

“It’s pressure,” she tried to explain. “Will you like them and will they like you? Do you have to be more this or less that? Dating a stranger is pretty fake, isn’t it? People project an image. You see what they want you to see and they often hide who they really are. It’s like going out with a mask on. I don’t have the energy for it.”

It was an understatement. She found it monumentally stressful—which was why she’d cut it out of her life.

“How about going out and being yourself? Does that ever happen?”

“That doesn’t usually work.”

“How can being yourself not work?”

She was acutely conscious of the people working around them and wondered how the conversation had blended so seamlessly from talk of buds and blooms to her own phobias. And it wasn’t just the conversation that unsettled her. It was the way he focused on her with that lazy, sexy gaze—as if she was the only person on the roof. In New York City. In the world.

She’d always felt safe with Matt, but suddenly she didn’t feel safe. She was trying to stay safely in her comfort zone and he seemed determined to nudge her out of it. Which wasn’t like him.

She was filled with a whole bunch of feelings she didn’t recognize and had no idea what to do with. Her body hummed with awareness and breathless anticipation—although what she was anticipating, she had no idea.

“I don’t expect you to understand. When you’re with a woman it’s probably very simple.”

She was about to change the subject when he lifted his hand and pushed her hair back from her face. She felt the rough pads of his fingertips brush gently against her skin and started to tremble.

“When I’m with a woman,” he said softly, “I want her to be herself. If someone isn’t interested in who you really are, or in showing you who they really are, you’re probably wasting your time dating them.”

He let his hand drop but the trembling didn’t stop. It was as if he’d hit a trigger point—switched something on inside her. She saw his face through a blur of sunlight and the feverish patterns created by her own brain.

When I’m with a woman...

All she could think was, Lucky woman. Lucky, lucky woman.

The atmosphere was electric, and she felt a strange rush of awareness brush across her skin. Her heart was pounding so hard she expected his entire crew to pick up the rhythm.

“Are you seeing someone at the moment?”

Why, oh, why had she asked him that question? She didn’t want to know. She truly didn’t want to know. She rubbed her hands over her arms, wondering how she could have goose bumps when it was so hot.

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“There’s no one who interests you?”

“There is someone who interests me a great deal.”

“Oh.” Frankie felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “Well, that’s...exciting.”