Page 48 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

“Oh what?” he growled.

“You’re nervous,” she returned, true sympathy working through her. She tended to forget not everyone dealt with business presentations routinely, and it might be intimidating.

He glared at her. “No shit.”

“You don’t have to be nervous,” she said, moving toward him. She felt compassionate enough she might even not press the suit issue, though she was a little concerned he could have that kind of influence on her. “I have it all planned out. It’s going to go perfectly.” She rubbed his shoulders and gave him her brightest, surest smile.

“You aren’t nervous at all?” he asked incredulously.

Okay, that probably wasn’t quite true, but going into the lion’s den meant affecting a certainty, a surety. Any nerves had to be ruthlessly buried in confidence. “I have a sense of purpose, and you should too. We both believe in this proposition, right?”

He took a deep breath and she was almost afraid he’d say no, that he was just doing it for her, which might be the most awful possibility she could consider.

And made it all the more imperative she succeed at convincing the board that working with Carter would be a better alternative than paving his farm over.

“Look, I don’t mean to play the woe-is-me card, but like I said, I’ve wanted a lot of things in my life, but I’m not so used to getting them.”

“You never had me on your side.”

He chuckled and shook his head. She wanted to give him a reassuring hug. She wanted to press her lips to his. She wanted to tell him . . .

Focus, Gallagher.

“I’m not going to do the suit, not because I’m being difficult, but because I won’t be able to concentrate on what I have to say if I’m that uncomfortable. Fair?”

She gave a little nod. She didn’t like it, but it was fair. Toherit made more sense to do the uncomfortable thing if it would present a clear, professional image.

Sure, the board would likely expect a farmer to show up in jeans and a dirty T-shirt, and Carter’s attempt at business attire was a step up from that. She wanted to prove to every single person on that board there was so much potential in this man.

She knew most of the board members, and they would almost unanimously roll their eyes at a guy who’d plowed over his yard to create a farm, but she needed to show them how genius and right it really was.

There was so much at stake, and she’d always believed that one’s appearance, as the first impression, was an important first step to success.

She gave him another once-over with a somewhat critical eye. He’d trimmed his hair and his beard and he looked a little bit moregroomedthan usual. She was surprised to find on a personal level she preferred the wilder, more unkempt look he usually went with. Of course, Carter seemed to be an expert at being the opposite of what she usually found attractive.

She smiled to herself. Even in the suitable khakis and black, nondescript polo shirt, he made her chest ache a little. He washandsome. Maybe not slick-businessman handsome, but he had an elemental authenticity to him she couldn’t help but admire.

This was going to be fine. They just had to follow the plan and it would be totally, 100 percent fine.

“We should probably head over. I want to get set up before all the board members get there.”

“All right.”

“You don’t have to look quite so much like you’re about to walk death row,” she said, completely, inexplicably charmed by his reticence.

“I’m presenting a business proposition to a board of Gallaghers who have thus far only sniffed around to buy my land. Trust me when I say, it feels a little bit like I’m a dead man walking.”

“I promise, it’s not going to be like that.”

Carter let out a sigh. “I know this is important to you. I hope you know, for all my arguing and sighing, it’s important to me too.”

The way he could genuinely cut to the heart of things, to lay his feelings or beliefs on the line like that, it never failed to take her breath away. “I do know that.”

“Good. Because I don’t have that thing you do, where you can cut it all down to the most important part. I don’t know how to do the maneuvering. Sometimes I’m just going to be the unpolished me that I am, and I don’t want you to mistake that for not caring.”

His gaze was so earnest. Dinah marveled at how serious this had gotten, so fast. So out of the damn blue, but it was here: her heart constricting, herneedfor this to work—the partnership,them. “It’ll be fine. I prom—”

“Stop.”

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