But when the main course was cleared—again a dish he knew she enjoyed—a small black ring box appeared on the table and her breath ran out.
She stared at it. That couldn’t be what she thought it was. The roses…the violinists…Suddenly her mind snapped with shattering clarity to a conclusion she had not even considered. The romance had been prelude to a proposal?
She couldn’t believe it and yet, no other reason for the ring box could penetrate her racing mind. A man did not give a woman a ring simply to embark on an affair.
He reached across the table and took her hand. Feeling strangely numb, she could feel him looking at her and willing her to meet his gaze. She forced herself to do so, her eyes moving up the strong chin with its adorable cleft, past the long straight nose to a gaze as penetrating as a laser beam.
“Eleanor Wentworth, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
Even expecting the question, her usual aplomb deserted her and she gasped and stared, her mouth opening, but no sound emerging. He’d asked her to marry him, but she had no idea how he felt about her. If he loved her, wouldn’t he have said it? Wouldn’t she have sensed it?
He cocked his head to one side, one brow rising in an obvious prompt for a response.
“I don’t know,” she blurted out past a constriction of emotion in her throat.
The words sounded unnaturally loud to her ears. She couldn’t believe she’d said it…like that. And from the look on his face, he couldn’t, either. He had been expecting a very different response.
“Come, you must have been expecting this.”
“Um…no, I wasn’t. Honestly.” She bit her lip, thinking maybe she’d been naïve, but it had never occurred to her that a man as dynamic and sensual as he was would ask a woman to marry him that he had never slept with. “This has come as a complete surprise.”
And she sounded more gauche than she ever had in her life. She’d been handling difficult social situations with grace since deportment classes when she was a mere six years old, but she’d never been proposed to…by a man she wanted, but was not at all sure wanted her. She hoped, had an inkling he might…but no certainty.
“Anunpleasant surprise?” He didn’t sound in the least vulnerable when asking that question. Not like she would have. Instead he sounded demanding, as if he wanted answers and he wanted themnow.
“Not unpleasant.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “Justvery unexpected.”
“We have been dating for three months.”
“Yes.” They had already established that.
“Exclusively?”
“Yes…I mean I assumed…”
“For me, it has been exclusive.”
Something inside her that she had not even realized had gone tense, relaxed a little. “For me, too.”
“Where did you think this relationship of ours was going, if not marriage?”
“I thought maybe first…to bed,” she answered honestly. Did they even have a relationship?
Casual dating yes…but arelationship?
He cursed in Greek. She recognized the word from a summer she had spent studying ancient civilizations in his former homeland. It was a very nasty curse. “I don’t believe you just said that.”
That caught her up short. “Why?” To her, it was a perfectly natural conclusion to make.
“It is unlike you.”
“Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” It might not be considered appropriate to discuss such matters in a public place, but she didn’t give as much credence to proper behavior as everyone seemed to think she did. Or as her father thought she should.
Honesty was far more important to her.
And the fact was, he clearly didnot know her all that well if he was shocked she’d had the temerity to mention sex. Marriage to a man who was that ignorant of her inner person was not a wholly appealing proposition. If it had not beenhim doing the proposing, it would hold no appeal at all.
“I do know you,” he insisted.
Exasperated, she shook her head. “Notthat way.”
“I know enough to be certain of our compatibility.”
“Because we’ve shared a few kisses?”
“We have shared more than kisses.” His now molten gaze reminded her just how much more.
But as far as they’d gone, he always pulled back. Except once. The first time they’d kissed, it had almost gotten out of hand very quickly. Frightened by a wealth of emotion she wasn’t used to experiencing, she’d pulled back. Since then, he had done more than kiss her, but he’d never let the passion flare so hot and he’d certainly never made love to her completely.