Page 140 of This Heart Of Mine (Chicago Stars 5)

She sagged down on the glider. This was silly. The mental meanderings of someone who’d spent too much time inside an MRI machine. He was trying to take everything she understood about who she was and turn it topsy-turvy. “You have no idea what you’re—”

Just like that, she ran out of air.

“What you’re—” She tried to say the rest, but she couldn’t because deep inside her something finally clicked into place.

The class clown… The girl most likely to ditch school…

“It’s not only that you’re afraid to take a risk because you’re competing with Phoebe. You’re afraid to take a risk because you’re still living with the illusion that you have to be perfect. And, Molly, trust me on this, being perfect isn’t in your nature.”

She needed to think, but she couldn’t do it under those watchful green eyes. “I’m not—I don’t even recognize this person you’re talking about.”

“Give it a few seconds, and I bet you will.”

It was too much. He was the bonehead, not her. “You’re just trying to distract me from pointing out everything that’s screwed up about you.”

“There’s nothing screwed up about me. Or at least there wasn’t until I met you.”

“Is that right?” She told herself to shut up, this wasn’t the time, but everything she’d been thinking and trying not to say spilled out. “What about the fact that you’re afraid to make any kind of emotional connection?”

“If this is about Lilly…”

“Oh, no. That’s way too easy. Even someone as obtuse as you should be able to figure that out. Why don’t we look at something more complicated?”

“Why don’t we not?”

“Isn’t it a little weird that you’re thirty-three years old, you’re rich, moderately intelligent, you look like a Greek god, and you’re definitely heterosexual. But what’s wrong with this picture? Oh, yeah, I remember… You’ve never had a single long-term relationship with a woman.”

“Aw, for the… “ He sprawled down at the table.

“What’s with that anyway?”

“How do you even know it’s true?”

“Team gossip, the newspapers, that article about us in People. If you ever did have a long-term relationship, it must have been in junior high. Lots of women move through your life, but none of them gets to stay around for long.”

“There’s one of them who’s been around way too long!”

“And look at what kind of women you choose.” She splayed her hands on the table. “Do you choose smart women who might have a chance of holding your interest? Or respectable women who share at least a few of your—and don’t even think about arguing with me about this—a few of your rock-bottom-conservative values? Well, surprise, surprise. None of the above.”

“Here we go with the foreign women again. I swear, you’re obsessed.”

“Okay, let’s leave them out of it and look at the American women the PK dates. Party girls who wear too much makeup and not enough clothes. Girls who leave drool marks on your shirts and haven’t seen the inside of a classroom since they flunked dummy math!”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Don’t you see, Kevin? You deliberately choose women you’re predestined not to be able to have a real relationship with.”

“So what? I want to focus on my career, not jump through hoops trying to make some woman happy. Besides, I’m only thirty-three. I’m not ready to settle down.”

“What you’re not ready to do is grow up.”

“Me?”

“And then there’s Lilly.”

“Here we go…”

“She’s terrific. Even though you’ve done everything you can to keep her at arm’s length, she’s sticking around, waiting for you to come to your senses. You’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose with her, but you won’t give her even a little corner of your life. Instead, you act like a petulant teenager. Don’t you see? In your own way you’re as freaked by your upbringing as I am about mine.”

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