Page 15 of Lush Curves

“You werebeautiful. Strong and sweet, so damn scared but so giving to Jax and Noah. You think I didn’tseethat, Annie? See your gentle, bright, compassionate side?”

“Uh.” Annie looked down, looked away from those amazing eyes just burning a hole through her damnsoul. “Uh…”

“Idid. I saw it every single time that I looked at you, Annie.Christ, honey… it wasallthat I saw.”

Annie froze. Did Doctor Sam Frickin’ Innis just call her ‘honey’?Her?

“Uh…” she managed again. “Uh, well… thank you, Sam. That’s very sweet –”

“Don’tyou darecall me ‘sweet’ again,” Sam growled, and the rapid switch from educated professional to pure animal didincrediblethings to the area between Annie’s thighs. Things that no man had really done to her since Billy had touched her, way back in those perfect first few months of knowing him. “I’m not a sweet simpleton, honey. I’m a man who is looking at a gorgeous woman, a woman that he wants to get to know better.”

“You – you do?”

“Yes. So.” Sam carefully reached across the table and took her hand. “What are you doing Friday night?”

“Friday…Fridaynight?”

“Yes. Friday night.”

Annie stared down at his strong, capable hand completely enveloping hers. Her wrinkled, cracked, veiny, unmoisturized hand, damaged from years of carrying heavy trays, and being burned by boiling coffee and sauces. It wasn’t a manicured hand, naturally, and she felt the urge to yank it away, to curl her disgusting nails up and under her palm.

God, she wanted to say yes.Of courseshe did. What living, breathing woman would turn down a dinner with a tall, built, smoking-hot doctor?

Her. She would. Because he had to be at least fifteen years younger than she was… and he was heart-stoppingly stunning, and he was smart as hell, and heshouldbe going to dinner with some gorgeous young lawyer who argued cases in front of the Supreme Court every day and built houses for orphans in her spare time, or maybe another doctor who ran around saving lives all day before training for her next full marathon, without smudging her perfect eyeliner, naturally. A brainy, polished woman, one who spoke another language and knew things about art and earned good money and lived in a cool little studio downtown and did yoga bright and early every weekend.

She opened her mouth to say no.

“Annie?” Sam said.

And that was it…thatwas the thing that made her change her mind, lightning-quick. The way that he said her name. It was like a sweet drug, a pure addiction, an aching need: she wanted to hear him say her name again. And again.

Her mouth slammed shut; her thoughts raced.

Nothing could ever come of this, she knew that. He needed a woman who could give him babies, a woman who could talk to him on his level, a woman who could challenge him. That wasn’t her; not in any realm or world or parallel universe. She knew that, too.

But she could go for dinner with him on Friday night and make small-talk. She could smile and not embarrass him in public.

She could have him for one night. One perfect night of hearing her name said likethatover and over again.

Thatcould fuel her romantic fantasies until the day that she died, couldn’t it? Sure it could. She could think about it just a little bit at a time, dole it out like candy to a greedy toddler, save it for when the nights felt extra-long and -lonely. She could make it last.

“Yes, Sam?” she said, much more calmly than she actually felt.

“Dinner Friday night at Chorus?” he asked. “Can you make it, honey?”

She had nothing to wear to goddamn pricey Chorus. She had no nice jewellery to hang around her neck or dangle from her ears or put on her fingers. She didn’t own a single pair of high-heeled shoes. She had ratty nails, split ends, cheap lipstick in her falling-apart purse. She wasn’t anythinglikeready to take Chorus by storm.

Fuck it.

She opened her mouth, and the word that was about to change her life forever just fell out of her mouth:

“Yes.”

Chapter Three

“Wait a second.” Talia Ross’ voice was awe-struck. “Adoctor? A hot younger doctor?”

“Yep.” Annie scrubbed at a particularly-stubborn stain on the counter. Goddamn coffee, the bane of her working existence. That and grease from the cooker. “The doctor who first saw Sarah when she landed in the E.R. three years ago… remember?”

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