Page 67 of The Attraction File

TWENTY-SEVEN

Edgar

Evaleen was joking.

She must have been joking. She thought I was making fun of her liking romance, and now she was pretending to be a romance author.

“What do I have to do to convince you I like romance? Dress up like a romance hero? Here look.” I reached under my seat pulling out my black leather bag. In it I had the latest book I was reading. I held it up to her. “See, The Mighty Scotsman in Disguise. I even dog-eared the page I’m on.”

“Oh my God.” She flung herself back as if I threw a spider at her.

I shook my head. “It’s just a book, Evaleen. It’s not going to hurt you.”

Why can’t a guy like romance? When I told Henrik a few years ago he laughed at me for an hour. Of course, he had the emotional maturity of an earwig so I didn’t expect anything better.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she whisper-screamed at me, pushing the book back.

“Why are you doing this to me, Evaleen? So what if I read,” I lifted the book and read the author’s name, “Annabelle Blacksmith’s books? It’s the twenty-first century; I don’t have to live the stereotype of only reading thriller or sci-fi or books about war. I enjoy reading about human emotion and relationships. Plus, I like ending a book with a smile on my face.”

“Okay. It’s not that I don’t believe you, Edgar. Did you not hear what I said? I’m the author. I’m Annabelle Blacksmith.”

I laughed as she stared at me. The laughter died as I realized she was telling the truth. Evaleen Bechmann, the most in control and sexually repressed woman I had ever met, wrote romance novels. Not just that, but she wrote some of the steamiest sex scenes I had ever read.

If she was a virgin, how could she write that?

Either she was lying about being the author or about being a virgin. I could handle the joke about being an author, but if she was making up being a virgin then I felt used. I don’t understand why she would say that just to get me in bed?

I would have been happy to have sex with her last night. In fact, I was hoping to have her last night until she mentioned she was a virgin.

Maybe that was it. She didn’t want to have sex with me. She was horny and I was there, but she didn’t want to go all the way with me.

“So, if you are a virgin, Evaleen, how could you write those sex scenes? Huh?”

Evaleen groaned. “Just because I’m a virgin doesn’t mean I don’t know about the birds and the bees. I know how things work down there, and I’ve read enough romance books to get a good idea of what readers want to see when their characters get down to it.”

As everything sunk in I decided she wasn’t lying. About anything. Evaleen was a virgin and a romance writer. And she was good at what she wrote.

Evaleen Bechmann had a very dirty mind.

My eyes slid down her body as I imagined what lace she had hidden under her dark blue suit. I suddenly wanted to find out the color. Perhaps reenact a few of the scenes she wrote.

“I bet you have a lot of fans.” I kept staring at her pants.

“I guess I do. I love them. I have a group on Facebook called Annabelle’s Addicts. They’re great. Sometimes I feel I can tell them things I can’t tell anyone else.”

That caught my attention. “You have friends though. I see you talking to Morgana a lot. And those women from yesterday. Can’t you talk to them?”

“I could but I don’t. It’s not them, Edgar. It’s me. I know I’m not the friendliest person out there. Sometimes I feel like . . .” she stopped as a blush warmed her cheeks, “. . . oh, you don’t want to hear this. Like I said, you aren’t my therapist.” Evaleen was smiling except for her eyes.

“Evaleen, just because we work together doesn’t mean I’m not your friend. Maybe you don’t want to tell them, but I would be willing to listen. Sometimes telling a person you aren’t close to is easier than telling the people you are more familiar with.”

She glanced up and nodded. Evaleen took a breath, bracing herself. “You know I’m a virgin. That’s not news. But it’s not like I woke up one day and decided to stay a virgin. It’s not like I said, ‘You know what would be fun, not having sex.’ That never happened.” She chuckled but it didn’t seem like she was having any fun.

“I’ve always had men trying to get me to do things I didn’t want to do. Then they would get angry when I said no. Especially when I was younger. I would panic when guys got close and freak out when they, God, I really shouldn’t be telling you this. Especially after last night.”

Evaleen wouldn’t look at me. She gazed at her fingers that fidgeted with the pages of the book in her lap. I couldn’t tell she was crying until I saw a tear drop onto the paper.

I leaned in and lifted her chin with my fingers. “Evaleen, you can tell me anything you want. I’m sorry that happened to you. If I could build a time machine and go back to beat the crap out of those idiots that treated you that way, I would. Even if it did create an alternate timeline and when I came back you had two heads.”

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