Page 69 of Trying Sophie

Chapter Eighteen

Sophie

Despite my decisionnot to play his game, Declan had gotten to me and I was afraid of how I reacted when I was around him—how my body responded to his very presence, that voice. None of it was logical. If my attraction to other men throughout my life had been a soft spring rain, what I felt when I was near him was a gale-force hurricane.

When he’d told me he’d never pursued a woman before, that I was the first, some strange combination of feminine power and pride had sparked in me. But as heady as it had been, I couldn’t fool myself into thinking I’d be the last.

I told myself if I did this thing, if I continued down this path, I was doing womankind a favor. Someday, somewhere, someone would silently thank whoever had taught Declan what it meant to treat a woman with respect and adoration. I told myself I could walk away knowing I’d played a vital role in his education.

You’re lying to yourself and you know it.

Yeah, I did. And that’s what worried me.

At the crack of dawn, I woke with a start, my mind frazzled. It felt like a live wire ran straight from my brain to my heart as it thumped painfully in my chest. I’d never had a panic attack before, but Katie had suffered through them for years and had once described in gruesome detail what it felt like so I was pretty sure that’s what was happening right now. Unable to get my breathing under control, I flipped on the bedside lamp and watched as my hands trembled in front of me. I took three deep breaths and exhaled slowly, focused on regulating my heartbeat and steadying my nerves.

This was ludicrous. Even though I was afraid of heights, I’d jumped out of a plane at 14,000 feet and hadn’t been this distressed. And spending the day with Declan was nothing compared to sailing a small catamaran through a freak tropical storm. And yet I hadn’t been paralyzed with fear either of those times the way I was now.

You are being ridiculous, I told myself. Yet knowing that was true and being able to stop were two very different things. Because here I was, almost an hour later, still panicking. When a scalding hot shower proved incapable of steadying my nerves, I was tempted to cancel on him.

You’re being a coward.

Yes, I am.

You’ve never been a coward.

There’s a first time for everything.

Man up Sophie.

Shut up!

And now I was having a bitchy conversation with myself! I’d well and truly lost my mind. And all because I was going on a non-date with a man who made me feel things I’d never felt before. A man who as a boy I’d imagined hundreds—thousands?—of times being eaten alive by jackals. A man I had absolutely no future with.

What are you afraid of then?that damn nagging voice taunted.

Yeah, what exactly was I afraid of?

I plopped down on my bed to give the question some serious consideration and what I concluded was more complicated than I would have thought.

I hadn’t wanted to like Declan, and the fact that I did—quite a lot—made me feel like I’d lost control. Even more troubling was my illogical and unsettling reaction to his nearness. I’d never lost the thread of a conversation because I was imagining writhing naked under someone or wondering what it would feel like to have that man’s mouth on my body. The things he made me feel without even touching me, the pure want that came over me when I was near him, was something I craved.

I needed more of that feeling in my life.

Which led to my next realization.

I’d planned to stay in Ballycurra for a couple of weeks, but here I was, weeks later, and I had no idea what came next. I had nowhere to be, no one to go home to. With a start I realized I was no longer satisfied living such a solitary, nomadic existence. I wanted someone to call my own and I wanted a permanent home. Which was precisely why I couldn’t lose myself to Declan. If I wasn’t careful I might start to think of him in those terms I couldn’t let that happen because that’s not the type of man he was.

Somehow, this mind-bending conclusion helped steady my nerves about spending time with him. Because if I needed to be panicked about anything, the question of my future was where I should be focusing my energies, not on what I was sure would amount to a temporary, meaningless fling.

Pulling on my figurative big girl panties, I galloped down the stairs to find my grandparents eating breakfast and reading the newspaper.

“Well, don’t you look nice today,” my grandma remarked, looking up from her paper and taking in my outfit.

I didn’t think I was dressed any differently than normal, but when my grandpa turned his head and whistled, I was forced to do a double-take. Standing in front of the only full length mirror in the apartment, I tried to see what they saw. I’d thrown on a soft, draped black crew neck t-shirt topped by a cream cable knit cardigan. Around my neck I’d wrapped a paisley patterned pashmina and my ears were the same vintage pearl studs I’d worn every day for the past three years. My dark skinny jeans, a staple of my wardrobe, were tucked into knee-high brown leather boots.

“I don’t see it,” I muttered, confused by all their fuss.

“You did something different with your hair,” my gramps pointed out when I returned, patting his own balding head.

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