What did it matter? It wasn’t as if anything would come of this. No one ever had to know. From what Brian had told him earlier today, she was a woman looking for a good time to get over a shitty ordeal. And he really had no problem being used, at least not in that capacity. They were a match made in a very brief heaven.
“So,” he said, positioning his knife over a tomato and mentally scrabbling for conversation, “a doctor, huh?”
“Looks that way.” She put the skillet on the stove and turned on the burner. He tried to imagine it, but he just couldn’t see her in scrubs. “After nursing for several years, I started to feel like I knew as much as any of the pediatricians I’ve ever worked for, so why not? And I love kids so much.”
“Well, that’s great. Good on you for following your dreams.”
One of her shoulders lifted nonchalantly. “I should have followed it fifteen years ago.”
Fifteen years ago, he was still in middle school. He chuckled at the thought.
“What’s so funny?”
“You just kinda…brought home our age difference.”
“Oh.” She laid a strip of bacon in the skillet, where it sizzled angrily. “I hate to even ask how old you are.”
“So don’t. I’ll tell you. I’m twenty-eight.”
She laughed out the word “Jesus,” giving it several more syllables than it contained. “Well, Ian, I hope you don’t mind being with an older woman.”
“As long as you don’t mind being with a younger man.”
“After tonight, I might rob the cradle from now on.”
He could damn sure say, for his part, he didn’t mind being robbed from the cradle. Not if she was the one doing the robbing. “I know I’m not supposed to ask…” he began, dangling the invitation for her to fess up.
She gave him a sultry glance over her shoulder. “So don’t. Only, I won’t tell you.”
“I’ll just find out from your brother,” he teased.
“He’ll want to know why you’re interested.”
“Maybe I’ll tell him.”
“Right. As hard as I had to work to get you here because you’re so scared of him? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not scared of him, dammit, and I’ll let you in on a little secret. You really didn’t have to work that hard to get me here.”
“Well. It felt like I did.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and it was impossible not to answer it with one of his own.
“Sorry about that.”
“So then, why did you play so hard to get?” Gabby continued her task, laying a couple more pieces in the skillet. He finished the tomato and started on the lettuce in the time it took him to formulate an answer.
It was complicated. He’d only ten seconds ago had the thought that he didn’t care about being used…at least not for sex. On a deeper level, though, something inside him ached. He recalled sitting in the bar and feeling like he was the prey and she the predator. He’d spent too much of his life that way. He’d worked too hard to escape it all. Any little reminder could send him spinning back mentally, and that was the one thing he tried to avoid at all costs. The less he thought about his past, the better.
But a beautiful woman coming on strong wasn’t enough to make that happen. There was more to it than that.
“You seem like a go-getter. I guess I wanted to see how hard you’d work to get me.” It wasn’t the truth, but it sounded like a good substitute. It might placate her.
“You like throwing down a challenge, then?”
“Maybe.”
“I guess I like a challenge.”
“Given your chosen profession, I’m not surprised.”
They created idle chitchat while they finished food prep and eventually sat down on the barstools at the counter to eat. He marveled that Gabriella Ross could look sexy as hell just eating a BLT. There was simply something about a woman who enjoyed her food, and she obviously did.
“I was starving,” she said finally, wiping her mouth with one of the napkins he’d put out. “And I haven’t had one of those in ages. Thanks for bringing up bacon.”
He chuckled and started on his second. “You’re welcome.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
Caught with a mouthful, he struggled to swallow quickly and shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start basic. Full name?”
“Bastian Anderson Rhodes.”
“Oh!” She laughed. “That’s…thorough. I guess I have to give up my middle name now too.”
“If you want. I don’t require it or anything.”
She smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s—” She said something that sounded foreign and beautiful and that he could never hope to pronounce. “But that’s Irene to you. It’s Italian. From my grandmother.”
“Can you speak it?”
“I get by when I visit over there. Mom made sure of it.”
“Wow. Awesome. So…Brian can speak Italian?”
“I think he knows mostly cuss words. But he can get by too. He just gets laughed at more than I do. Evan, he’s fluent. He was always the star pupil.”
“He’s a lawyer, right?”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Too much school for me.”
“That’s us. Family of overachievers. Although it took Brian a while to get there.” She sipped the beer he’d gotten her from the fridge when they’d sat down. He’d taken one too. “What about your family? They’re in Dallas, you said?”
He shifted on his barstool. God, don’t let her dig too deep. “My mom is.”
“Are you close?”
“Not particularly. I mean, we speak. We’re cool. But not real close.”
“Well…that’s unfortunate. Not my business, of course, so I’ll shut up now.”
“It’s all right.” He’d tell her a little, then maybe she wouldn’t feel as if she’d pried. “My stepdad was a real dickhead, and that’s putting it mildly. From the time they got together when I was twelve, she and I had a major difference of opinion about how she should handle that situation.” He paused, the sight of the half-eaten sandwich in front of him suddenly making him nauseated. “He died a few years ago. So it’s not a problem anymore. But the damage was done.”
Even though it had been over ten years, he could swear the scar over his eye ached.
“Wow,” she said softly. “I’m sorry about that. It’s a disgrace when people choose a partner over their kids. Not that that’s what she was doing—”
“She was.”
“Your kids should come first. No matter what. And I’ll really shut up now.”
“Before you shut up, know that I agree with you. A hundred percent. Now, on to happier things.” He held up his beer bottle to toast. “To the Rangers.”
She laughed and clinked her bottle against his. “May they be ever victorious. Not going to happen, but we can dream.”
“Absolutely.” He took a deep breath. It felt like the first inhalation he’d accomplished since she brought up the subject of family. Appetite gone, he pushed his plate forward. “Want this?”