Lead Me On. Victoria Dahl
Copyright
JANE MORGAN STARED at the man seated across the table from her. The lunch crowd at the trendiest restaurant in Aspen was a pretty quiet group. There was nothing to distract her from Greg Nunn.
She watched him chew his food, his jaw moving as anyone else’s jaw would move when they ate. He wasn’t sloppy. He didn’t dribble crumbs down his chin or flash an occasional view of partially chewed pasta. He ate the way any reasonable man would. So why in the world did she feel vaguely nauseated as Greg swallowed and wiped his mouth?
“Is your steak all right?” he asked. “It looks a little rare.”
“No, it’s fine,” Jane insisted, and made herself cut off another piece and raise it to her lips.
“I told you to get the prawns.”
Jane chewed and told herself not to growl. In fact, he’d mentioned that grilled prawns were low fat, as if Jane needed to lose weight. That was a new development. Maybe he was feeling the strain between them, too.
Greg turned his attention back to his own food, and she stared in horror as he slipped another bite of salmon into his mouth and began to grind away. Surely his teeth worked a bit more vigorously than necessary? Lowering her gaze, she swallowed hard to get her piece of steak down.
They’d been dating for four months now, though they’d been sleeping together only a few weeks. Aspen wasn’t exactly a huge dating pool, so Jane tried to step cautiously into those waters. Now she wished she’d held off a little longer.
Before they’d slept together, Greg had been the perfect boyfriend. Smart, attentive and mildly funny…he’d even struck the perfect balance between patience and desperation during the long wait to get into her bed. But now that he was in her bed, he was becoming more proprietary every day. Sleeping over every other night. Insisting she attend every dinner and cocktail party hosted by his attention-loving boss. And now he thought he had some input into her lunch selection. Jane felt the walls were closing in around her.
Ridiculous, of course. She wanted a future with a smart, ambitious, successful man, and Greg was on the fast route toward becoming the lead assistant district attorney. But even his promising career couldn’t make her forget the fact that he made love like a rabbit.
Jane frowned at the small sound Greg made when he took a sip of water. How could a man of such keen intelligence even begin to imagine that women liked it fast and frantic and shallow?
She’d tried to let it go. She really had. A man couldn’t be judged on the depth of his thrusts alone. He was handsome, educated and only a bit vain. He loved his job and he was good at it. He’d be a good father if they ever got that serious. Greg Nunn was exactly the kind of boyfriend Jane needed. Any other woman would be holding on to him with two clenched fists. A couple of months ago Jane had been holding tight herself.
But every time she’d seen him this week, all she’d been able to think about was the absentminded way he clicked his fingernails together when he was thinking. Or his habit of humming when he drove. Not humming actual songs, just hmmmm-ing in a tuneless sigh. And now the way he chewed.
The idea that he might put that mouth on her tonight when they went to his place for dinner… The idea that they might have sex…
Jane shuddered and set down her fork. “Greg, I’m afraid this isn’t working out,” she said without any preamble.
He picked through the grilled vegetables on his plate, pushing aside the peppers. “Hmm?”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
A pepper slid off the plate and onto the table. “What?”
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be so abrupt. I just don’t think this is going anywhere.”
“But…” His eyebrows snapped together. “We’re going to Fort Collins this weekend so you can meet my parents!”
She smoothed a nervous hand down her practical gray skirt. “Yes, I know. This is really awful of me. You’re a wonderful man—”
“Oh, great.”
“—but I just don’t think there’s much chemistry between us.”
“Seriously?” He looked genuinely shocked.
Jane pushed her glasses up nervously. “Well, there are sparks, of course,” she fudged. “But you aren’t in love with me.”
“Jane, we agreed from the start that we would take this slowly. I’m concentrating on my career and you didn’t want to rush into a physical relationship.” Greg leaned forward, his eyes taking on the bright expression of a lawyer sinking his teeth into an argument. “Waiting was fine with me, but I thought we both expected that we’d take it slowly emotionally, too.”
“Of course, but—”
“There’s plenty of sexual chemistry between us, and we’re perfectly suited in temperament. We’ve got the same goals in life, the same aspirations. And I respect you. I think you’re being a little hasty here.”
She was being hasty. But regardless of her practical nature—or maybe because of it—she could see she had no future with a man if she couldn’t bear to have sex with him just three weeks into their physical relationship. Still, there was no way she could say that to Greg, especially since the sex seemed to be just fine on his end.
“I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s…” Oh, God, was she really about to say this? Yes, she was. “Me,” she finished feebly.
Greg looked as disgusted with her as she felt with herself. “I can’t believe this.” His fork clattered against his plate. “Unbelievable. What am I supposed to tell my parents? ‘I’m a wonderful guy, but Jane decided to break it off right before the weekend she was going to meet my family’?”
“Maybe you could tell them I got sick.”
“I’m not going to try to hide the fact that you’ve dumped me, Jane. It’s not that much of a goddamn blow.”
His voice was getting louder. She’d wounded his pride. Greg hated losing cases, and apparently he hated losing the girl, as well. She recognized the hot fury in his eyes, because he looked the same after a bad day in court. Actually, he’d gotten that look the time she’d canceled a date to help her boss with a project. Maybe she should’ve paid less attention to his bedroom skills and more attention to his character.
Jane glanced nervously around. Only a few sets of eyes were on them. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help. Maybe I’d better go.”
“Maybe you’d better,” he snapped. “And don’t call me up when you get lonely in a couple of weeks. That new legal assistant’s been eyeing me for weeks. You can bet I’ll be talking to her tomorrow.”
He’d meant to hurt her, obviously, but all Jane felt was relief. And a fleeting hope that the new legal assistant preferred friction over thrust. “I’m sorry,” she said one more time as she grabbed her purse and stood. “I thought it would be better to end things before I met your parents. Do you want me to pay my half of the bill?”
“For Christ’s sake, just get the hell out!” Greg snatched up his water and took a gulp, not meeting her eyes at all.
Had he been in love with her? She didn’t think so. He looked more furious than hurt. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay with a man she wasn’t attracted to. “Goodbye.”
She waited for an answer, but none came, so Jane turned and walked toward the door. Her feet wanted to run, but she wouldn’t let them. She thought she heard a muttered curse behind her—something like “frigid bitch”—but she didn’t acknowledge it.