She slumped a little. “Sorry. And I love it when you use big words. Which reminds me, I actually came over here to have sex.”
“I know, but now you have to wait for it.” I wheeled to the kitchen. “Keep talking.”
She kept talking as I made her sandwich, ugly mustard and all. She told me about the phone call from her mother, the argument over the money. Then, after getting fired from Miller’s, she’d gone home and found the letter from the lawyer in the mailbox. She’d just gotten off the phone with him.
“So, that’s it,” she said as I put her sandwich, pickle, and ginger ale down in front of her. “My bills are paid for a while. Which is weird, because right before it happened I was thinking I’d like to do a job with my clothes on for a change.”
I watched her inhale the sandwich—she was freaking starving—and said, “Nurses keep their clothes on. At least, the ones I know always do. You could use that money to go to nursing school.”
She swallowed her last bite, looking troubled. “My mother says I’ll fail and waste the money.”
“Your mother sounds like she doesn’t do much mothering, to be honest. I know the type well.”
Tessa poked at the crumbs on her plate. “Andrew, I’m an underwear model and bartender. Do you think I’m smart enough to go to nursing school?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. “I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, and I’ve met a lot of nurses. They’re great people. Hardworking, dedicated, smart people. You’re just as smart as any of them.”
“Ugh.” She let out a stressed-out sigh. “I’ve always wanted to do it, but now that it’s actually possible, I’m pretty much terrified.”
“You’ll do great,” I said.
She would. She’d work hard, and she’d be a great nurse. And then she’d meet a great guy, and I’d be left in the dust. But I wasn’t going to think about that now.
Tessa leaned back on the sofa and looked at me, sweeping her gaze up and down. “So you feed me and pay me compliments. That’s your plan to get me into bed?”
I steepled my fingers beneath my chin. “Mustard is part of my plan for seduction.”
“And ginger ale.”
“You’ve been ensnared in my web from the beginning. Admit it.”
She smiled, a sexy smile, a little mysterious. “Or maybe it’s you who has been ensnared in my web.”
Was she kidding? Tessa could snap her fingers and I’d do anything she wanted. Literally anything. It was all I could do to keep up the pretense, not to let on.
“Enough about my problems,” she said. She leaned forward on the sofa and put her elbows on the arms of my chair, looking up at me. “What do we do now?”
Our eyes locked, hers a shade of blue that made me think of the hot summer sky before a storm blew in. I felt a long, slow beat of fear, my old friend. This is going to hurt.
I pushed it away. I had a beautiful woman sitting right here, and she wanted
to sleep with me. We both wanted it, and there was no reason to say no. What would the old Andrew Mason do?
I knew the answer to that. So I said, “Now you take your dress off and go to the bedroom, and I’ll follow you.”
She blinked once. Those perfect long lashes sweeping down, then up. This was the moment when she could say she couldn’t do it, that she’d changed her mind, that she’d made a mistake.
But this wasn’t just any woman. This was Tessa.
She smiled at me.
“Okay,” she said.
Twenty-Five
Tessa
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