Enchanting the Beast

by Maggie Dallen

  “The wheelchair,” she said. “How did that happen?”

  He was giving a full-blown smile now, a reward for having the courage to ask what so many others refused to acknowledge, she assumed.

  “Car accident when I was a kid,” he said. “My mom was driving. She died.”

  Holly winced. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged and she recognized the gesture for what it was. There were no good words of response when someone said , “Sorry for your loss.” She knew that firsthand. She found herself blurting out, “My parents died in a car crash too.”

  His gaze met hers and it said everything that words could not. For one oddly emotional moment, they shared an understanding.

  “How old were you?” she asked.

  “Ten.”

  That was it. His lips formed a firm, flat line and she found herself wondering if he’d ever spoken about that time to anyone. Maybe Andie? Maybe not. Knowing Spencer—and maybe it was silly but she was honestly starting to feel like she knew him, like she got him in some way that that most didn’t—she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d never talked about it at all.

  Maybe that was why she kept talking even when he clearly wanted the conversation to end. “That must have been tough,” she said. “Losing your mom and then losing your ability to walk on top of that.”

  His blank look said, No duh.

  Nope. He wasn’t getting off that easily. Picking up her wine glass to take another sip, she met his gaze over the rim. “What was the hardest part?’

  His eyebrows twitched slightly, just enough that she knew she’d surprised him by that question. For a second she thought he might not answer but then he blew out a long breath, glanced over his shoulder one more time, and then turned back to face her. “Aside from losing my mom, you mean?”

  She nodded. “Was your father around?”

  “You ask a lot of personal questions, you know that, right?”

  She gave him a little grimace. “I’ve been told.”

  One side of his mouth twitched up and she was emboldened to add, “I’ve also been told that being straightforward suits me, so…” She shrugged, giving him a smug look at having tossed his own words back at him.

  He gave her a lopsided smile. “Fair enough.” He folded his hands in his lap and looked up at the ceiling. “What did you want to know?” His gaze dropped to hers as he answered himself. “My father. He didn’t stick around for long. Next question?”

  Her heart twisted in her chest at his blasé brush off of that question. Clearly she’d touched a nerve. But she’d come this far, and she found that she desperately wanted to know more about this man. Not because of Jack or the assignment, but because he was intriguing. And kind of awesome to hang out with. And yes, more than a little bit sexy.

  “What was the hardest part?” she asked again.

  He laughed softly as he looked down at his legs. “If you’d asked me when I was ten I would have said not being able to play soccer anymore.”

  His voice held no pain but she felt it on his behalf.

  “But now?”

  He seemed to really think it over, his gaze clouding over for a moment before he answered. “Junior high.”

  She winced automatically. Junior high had been excruciating for her, she couldn’t imagine if she’d had to go through it with a handicap that set her even further apart from her classmates. “Kids can be cruel,” she said.

  His eyes widened with surprise. “No, it wasn’t that so much,” he said. “It was actually the opposite.”

  She leaned forward, wanting to be closer and no longer caring about her blouse or the sauce. “How so?”

  “I started a new school and I saw it as my chance to define myself, you know?”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t want to be that poor kid who lost his mom or that poor kid who was paralyzed in an accident.”

  “You didn’t want pity,” she said.

  He gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

  “So what happened?”

  He let out a loud exhale. “Exactly what you’d imagine. There was pity, mainly from the teachers, but the kids…they thought…” He let out a little laugh as he looked up at the ceiling, like he was reliving those years. “It was like everyone expected me to be nice.”

  She fell back in her seat, laughing at the disgusted way he said the word “nice.”

  “Everyone seemed to have this image of the poor, grieving, handicapped kid. Teachers treated me with kid gloves and the students either didn’t speak to me at all or, the ones who did, they seemed to expect that I would be so grateful that they were talking to me….”

  He trailed off with a shake of his head. When his gaze met hers, he shrugged. “That was when I decided that I didn’t want the wheelchair to define me. I was going to define myself.”

  Understanding hit her so hard she felt it in her toes. “So what did you do?”

  But she already knew the answer.

  He looked far too pleased with himself as he leaned back against the back of his chair. “I found new pastimes, ones that didn’t necessitate having friends or teammates.” His grin turned to a smirk. “I wasn’t nice, that’s for sure.”

  She stared at him for a moment as she tried to imagine a pre-teen Spencer, learning how to keep the judgmental world at bay. “I think I get it,” she said slowly, laughter lacing her tone. “You didn’t want to be pitied or labeled, so you defined yourself….”

  He nodded his agreement. But she wasn’t finished.

  “As an jerk,” she continued.

  His eyes widened before he tipped his head back and let out a roar of a laugh that had half the restaurant looking in their direction. Then he met her gaze once more, his eyes still dancing with laughter. “Yeah, I guess that’s accurate.”

  Of course she was, it was suddenly so clear. All except one thing. She leaned forward again, this time forgetting to mind her blouse and cursing under her breath as she caught the fabric of her sleeve in a dollop of sauce. “So, what’s your deal then? You never answered my question about why you’re so paranoid about leaving the apartment.”

  He moved forward too and used his napkin to dab at the stain. It didn’t help but it was a sweet gesture. She found herself holding her breath as her body registered his closeness. His hands were gentle, only touching the fabric, not her skin, but she could feel his warmth and she desperately wanted to be closer. His gaze was fixed on the stain so she was free to look at his lips and imagine how they would feel pressed against hers.

  It was definitely too hot in this place.

  He didn’t look up when he finally answered, his voice low and quiet. “It’s simple. I dislike people.”

  She laughed, his words breaking the sexual tension. And then she realized that he was one hundred percent serious. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘people?’ Like, all people?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Most.”

  “Who do you like?”

  He leaned back, dropping his futile quest to save her shirt. “My sister, Andie, who you met…sort of.” They shared another silly inside-joke smile at the memory of Andie’s voice in his apartment at their first, epically awful encounter.

  “Anyone else?” She wanted him to say her more than she cared to admit.

  He shrugged again. “There are a few others.”

  Her mouth didn’t even hesitate. “Me?”

  Well, there was one way of getting him to say it. But then his silence stretched out too long.

  Or not.

  He was an honest guy, she couldn’t strong-arm him into saying he liked her. Or even that he didn’t not like her. Apparently even that was too strong a sentiment. Disappointment had her looking down at her plate as though the lasagna had just said something clever.

  She was actively wishing she’d never opened her big mouth when he finally responded. “I haven’t figured you out yet.”

  There was something about the quiet way he said it that set off
alarm bells. He sounded too serious. Too intent. Too…curious.

  She didn’t want him trying to figure her out. She was the one who was supposed to be getting close, figuring out what made him tick, not the other way around. He was watching her closely and the intelligence behind that gaze made her nervous. “Is that why you work with computers?” She said the first thing that came to mind. “Because you dislike people?”

  Some of the tension eased as he leaned back slightly. “I’m a cliché, I suppose, but yes. Computers are simple. Understandable. They don’t lie.”

  Was that a meaningful look when he glanced in her direction or was he just looking her way? A panicky sensation had her fidgeting in her seat, suddenly too hot in the cozy restaurant and too restless in the typically comfortable booth. She was a liar. A dirty, no good, human liar just like all the people he didn’t like.

  He would despise her once he found out what she was up to.

  That thought was physically painful. They may not have spent a ton of time in each other’s company but she’d been starting to think of him as a friend. She couldn’t stand the thought that he would eventually hate her. Worse than that, he’d probably be apathetic toward her. He expected people to lie. She’d be living down to his low expectations and he would shove her out of his mind. Put her out of sight, just like the rest of the human population. Maybe she’d had too much wine because the thought of being cut out of his life and added to the list of people he despised in general was making her want to cry. She set her fork down on her plate with a loud clink. “Should we get out of here?”

  She needed fresh air but she also needed distraction. Anything to keep from sitting there and getting all sappy and maudlin over a guy she wasn’t supposed to really like.

  His brows shot up in obvious surprise but he nodded and gestured toward the waiter for their check. When they were heading back to their apartment building a few blocks away, he brought the conversation up again. “So what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “How’d you get into accounting?”

  She stopped and turned to look at him. “No one wants to hear about my job.”

  He smiled and her heart took a momentary break in its beating. “I do.”

  He did. He really did. He was giving her that look again, the one that said she was the only person on the planet and whatever she had to say was endlessly fascinating.

  Even if it was about accounting.

  “Be prepared,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment. “Excuse me?”

  She shrugged. “Be prepared. It’s the scout’s motto. I was a Girl Scout.”

  “Okay.” He dragged the word out, looking up at her with that confused-amused combo that made her stomach drop and her chest feel too light.

  What was she talking about?

  “And how exactly does that explain your love of accounting?”

  She laughed at that and kept walking. He steered his chair alongside her as she talked. “No one loves accounting.” She cocked her head to the side as she remembered one particularly avid fan in her accounting classes. “Maybe some accountants do. Most don’t.” She glanced down at him. “I don’t.”

  He cocked an eyebrow waiting for her to continue.

  She bit her lip, unsure of how much to tell of this personal story. But then she looked down and saw that his gaze was riveted to her lips. The lip nibbling came to an abrupt halt as she inhaled quickly, heat flooding her body and making her hypersensitive.

  The gasp of air made her feel tipsier than she had at the restaurant. Or maybe it wasn’t the inhale but the rush of warm, fuzzy hormones. Whatever it was she lost her self-consciousness and managed to shove aside reality.

  For this one moment she was just a woman talking to a man who she happened to find attractive.

  “Holly.” He said her name softly, in a low voice that made her think of satin sheets and naked skin.

  “Yes?” she breathed.

  “If you don’t finish telling me how the Girl Scout motto made you become an accountant I might die out here on the streets from suspense.”

  She let out a choked laugh and started walking again. “Okay, fine. So I was in Girl Scouts when I was little—”

  He made a funny sound and she turned to see him smiling up at her. “Sorry, I was just picturing a little Holly with her merit badges and her little uniform. I bet you were adorable.” He waved a hand. “Go on.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest to help block out the cold. “Anyway, after my parents died, my sisters and I struggled quite a bit financially. My parents didn’t have much in savings and it was used up quickly.” She cleared her throat. “We got into a lot of debt.”

  She heard his hiss of air, the kind that accompanied a wince. “Yeah, exactly. My older sister bore the brunt of it and my younger sister and I did everything we could to help out. But it sucked.”

  “I can imagine,” he said.

  For a second she found herself thinking about that time in their lives when she and Eve had to grow up overnight. “Anyway, my dad used to tell me that accountants could always find a job.” She shook her head and smiled down at him. “I don’t know where he got that idea but he thought accounting was the most practical career out there. And thanks to our situation I decided to take the scouts’ motto as my own. I always wanted to be prepared. I never wanted to be caught off guard like that again.”

  “Understandable,” he said.

  And he truly seemed to understand. She shrugged. “I’d had to learn about finances the hard way so I figured I might as well put that knowledge to good use when I went to college.” A cold gust of wind made her shiver and she picked up her pace. Their building was only a few blocks away.

  After a few beats of silence, Spencer spoke in a deadpan voice. “So, you didn’t choose to work with numbers for a living because you don’t like people then. That’s too bad, I thought we had that in common.”

  She let her head fall back as she laughed. It felt so good to laugh after sharing that story. Turning to give him a teasing smile, she said, “I wouldn’t say I don’t like people. In general, I think people aren’t so bad. But I’m not very good with them either, in case you hadn’t noticed. Numbers are less stressful.”

  He remained politely silent, not agreeing with her self-deprecating comment but not insulting her intelligence by trying to deny it either. They continued in silence for a while and she found herself more content than she’d felt in ages. Maybe it was wine. The wine definitely didn’t hurt.

  The cold air did nothing to sober up that tipsy part of her that felt languid and cozy wrapped within her winter jacket. Spencer seemed to have this effect on her. He made her comfortable. Well, he had ever since that first meeting, which she’d chalked up to an unfortunate first encounter. Sure, he might have a hard shell for strangers, but once one got to know him he was addictively easy to be around.

  “You know what else I like about numbers?” she asked. Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality as they entered the building as he held the door open for her.

  “What’s that?” He punched the number for their floor and she leaned against the elevator wall beside him.

  “I like how black and white they are.” She led the way off the elevator once it stopped and allowed him to nudge her toward his apartment instead of hers. It didn’t take much nudging. She was having a good time and she didn’t want the night to end.

  Besides, she was making headway. Not that she’d given the assignment much thought since they reached the restaurant, but she was fulfilling her end of the bargain. He was starting to trust her. Maybe like her even. A jolt of happiness was followed swiftly by guilt. She loved the idea that he might be warming up to her but the fact that it was under a pretense was hard to swallow. The more she got to know him, the harder it became.

  The urge to tell him the truth was overwhelming.

  She squelched it.

  “You okay?” he asked. They’d reached
his living room and he gestured for her to take a seat on the couch beside him.

  She sank into it, forcing all thoughts of guilt out of her mind.

  “You were saying?” he prompted. Where on earth had he gotten that bottle of wine? He must have had it ready, along with the glasses.

  “Did you plan on taking me back to your apartment?” she asked.

  His smile wasn’t really an answer. Not for the first time that night she thought of the fact that this was their third date. Or non-date. Whatever it was, it was the third. Wasn’t there some sort of rule around that? The third date was a milestone, wasn’t it? Things happened on date three.

  He’d never tried anything during those first two dates but maybe he was expecting something now. Or maybe she was.

  Her muddled brain tried to make sense of that one. Did she want something to happen?

  Her body most definitely did. She’d been single for far too long. Even when she’d been dating someone back in college, it had been a relationship that should have stayed friends. She’d figured that out too late. The chemistry had never been there, not the way it should have been. There’d been no electricity. No spark. No excitement between them that made her simultaneously relaxed and nervous, a sort of delicious feeling of anticipation she’d never felt before. She and her ex never had that connection.

  Not the way she did with Spencer.

  Oh no. Do not go there.

  The sober, practical portion of her brain surfaced with a vengeance. She was just projecting. Her mind was confusing fantasy with reality. This was a job, an assignment. It was a means to an end, the rent check she and her sisters so desperately needed. That was all.

  “You okay?” Spencer was leaning forward. He’d filled her glass and was waiting for her to take a sip.

  She took a large gulp. There, that helped. His hand covered hers and her mind went blank. She forgot all about the reasons she was supposed to be here. She could barely remember her name. All she could focus on was the feel of his warm hand enveloping hers.

  She stared at their entwined fingers as if they held the answer to every mystery in the universe.

  This was their third date.