Tempting Nora (8 page)

"
Give me more time and I'll have you back at my place." Gideon leaned across the table and whispered in her ear, "And you'll love every moment of it."

Love…every…
moment…of…

Whoa, wait a second. Where
had her scruples gone? One moment she'd been fine, the next her brain was flying out the window. She didn't know how Gideon had managed to make her brain numb, but she sure as heck wasn't falling for his tricks. And he had some nerve, kissing her wrist inside of a crowded restaurant! Didn't he notice how many people were staring?

"Gideon," she said.

"Uh-huh?" His voice was husky. Obviously he thought he still had her under his spell.

"Let go of my arm," she said. "And if you kiss me one more time, I'll rip
your ears off and feed them to my cat."

Gideon froze but didn't release her. So be it. She seized her spoon—the closest thing she could reach—and whacked him over the head with it.
He straightened up with a grunt, clutching the spot on his head where she'd whacked him. If people weren't staring before, they were now.

"It hurt, didn't it?"
She was pleased by his dumbfounded expression.

"What the he
ck?" Gideon rubbed his head.

"I won't hesitate to do that again if you so much as lay a finger on me, are we clear?"
She pointed the spoon at him threateningly.

"Crystal." Gideon nodded, his mouth
thin.

"Good." She crossed her arms. "Now let's get one thing straight. I will not sleep with you. The answer is
no
and the answer will always be
no
. I'm saving myself for marriage. There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind. Keep your hands to yourself."

The man stared at her, still clutching the spot where she'd hit him. She wondered whether she'd give
n him a concussion. Heck, she hoped she had. It would serve him right.

"What?" she snapped when he still didn't look away.

"Nothing." He shook his head, but he continued to stare at her with a strange new expression.

Suddenly, she
knew what the change in him was. He was looking at her with respect.

****

With a groan, Nora leaned away from the table and smiled at the ceiling. One steak dinner, two sodas, and three pieces of delectable cheesecake later, she was bursting at the seams. As she let out a content—although pained—sighed, Gideon smiled.

"Happy?" Gideon asked.

"Yeah." Despite everything, she was. "Thank you for the meal."

"
That's the nicest thing you've said all evening," he said.

"Whose fault is that?" He was the one who kept trying to make a pass at her.

Gideon chuckled and shrugged.

"Well, are you ready to go?" Gideon asked. "I'm sure you're itching to
head home. I know you have to work tomorrow."

She loathed that he knew her work schedule.

"I'm ready." She stood up with a sigh. "Is there any chance you won't come to the tea shop tomorrow?"

"Nope." Gideon winked and hopped to his feet. "In fact, I might be there early, just to get back at you for the spoon incident."

Oh great. She should have known.

As the two of them headed for the door, Gideon grabbed her hand. She scowled and pulled away at once.
No way Jose, Mr. Stalker.
Once they made it outside, she headed toward her car with single-minded determination. To her surprise and horror, Gideon seized her arm and pulled her back. She held up her fists, prepared to defend herself from his advances.

"Stop.
" She scowled at him. "I was tricked into going on this date, so there will be no kissing, hugging, or anything else."

"Calm down." Gideon rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to make a move. I was already rejected enough to
night. I need a day to repair my ego."

"I think your ego
could stand a little bruising." She gnashed her teeth.

"Here we go again." Gideon sighed. "I just wanted to ask you a question. Can you put your claws
away for long enough to have a normal conversation?"

"Claws?" She
cocked her head. "What am I, a cat?"

"Nora…" Gideon wrinkled his nose, obviously no longer in the mood for bickering.

She guessed she could attempt to answer his question without sarcasm or bitterness just this once.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why are you so against going home with a man?" he asked. "I'm not talking about just me either. I mean with any man."

Of course when he asked a question, it had to be a doozy. For a moment she considered sidestepping
his query or fleeing to her car, but then she realized he might leave her alone if he knew the truth. After all, he probably thought she'd made some vow of chastity she was too stubborn to break or something like that. No, her reasons were a lot more serious. Still it always hurt to talk about her past.

"
My mom," she said quietly. "I won't go home with anyone because of my mom."

"Your mom?" He stared at her, eyes wide.

"My mom was in a relationship with my dad for a couple years. He was her high school sweetheart. When she was eighteen, she got drunk at a party even though she wasn't twenty-one." Nora's fists clenched at her sides. "She slept with him and ended up becoming pregnant. My dad ran for the hills when she told him. My mom never heard from him again. Her parents kicked her out of the house. She was supposed to go to college that fall, but she took a minimum wage job instead and attempted to raise me."

"Oh." That was all Gideon said.

"I destroyed her, Gideon." She took a deep breath.

"
I'm sure that isn't true." He reached for her, but she took a step back.

Angry and upset—not at her mom but at herself—
she gnashed her teeth.

"It
's true. She hated me. In fact, she hated me so much she told me the story of what happened to her every night so I'd never forget how my existence ruined her life," Nora said. "When I was eight, she left me at an orphanage and I never saw her again. I vowed I wouldn't make the same mistakes she did. That's why I'll never sleep with a man before marriage. I don't want to see myself wearing the same haunted expression she did."

Since Gideon looked pained, she could tell she'd made her point
. Unfortunately, her own words made her heart burn. She was aware that her eyes brimmed with tears, but she was an expert at fighting down her emotions by now.

"I'm
sorry that happened to you," Gideon said.

She was surprised
by how much he sounded like he meant his apology. In fact, she'd never heard anyone sound so genuine. She stared at the sidewalk just as a black feather appeared out of nowhere and rested at her feet.

"Don't be." She forced a smile on her face, even though it hurt. "I turned out fine, didn't I? Who needs parents
anyway?"

"Nora…"
Gideon stared down at her, his eyes glowing with pity.

Suddenly, she was uncomfortable. This was why she never talked to anyone about her past. She was so sick of people looking at her with pity.

"Oh, look at the time." She would have checked her watch if she owned one.  "I should go home now."

She took two steps, but Gideon grabbed her arm and pulled her back again. Panicked, she swallowed her tears. He
wouldn't see her cry. She refused to embarrass herself that much.

"Let me go," she
said, longing to flee.

"Nora, I—"

"I said, let me go!" She ripped her arm out of his grip.

Before Gideon could run after her,
she rushed over to her car and climbed behind the wheel. She jammed her key in the ignition and reversed so fast she almost ran into a van that was pulling into the parking lot. As she headed onto Main Street, she took a deep, steadying breath. Unfortunately, her hands still shook on the steering wheel.

Her teeth clenched.
I'm such an idiot! I shouldn't have told him about my past.
It had been a stupid decision on her part. Opening up to Gideon made her vulnerable.

And if Nora hated anything, it was
being vulnerable…

Chapter Six

Seven-year-old Nora sat beneath a tree, flipping through a picture book. The backdoor to the house was open and she could hear her mom sobbing inside. Still she didn't look up. Instead she gritted her teeth and feigned deafness, turning the page of her book one more time.

"How could you do this to me!" her mom wailed at no one.

Don't listen, don't listen, don't listen,
she chanted in her mind. Still her attempts to block out all sound made her hearing, if anything, better.

As her stomach churned,
footsteps headed in her direction. She looked up as her mom darkened the doorstep.
She's coming out here,
Nora thought, panicked. When her mom was in one of her moods where the darkness swept over her like a cloud, Nora was scared. She'd never been hit, but the woman's words hurt her more than any punch or kick ever could.

Nora jumped to her feet and hid beneath a small plastic table. Surely her mom wouldn't find her under there. As she hid,
her mom stepped outside, holding a picture in her hand. The woman's dark hair hung, oily and limp, in her pale face. Sometimes her mom's eyes were warm, but on days like this, they were like two black holes.

"Nora," her mom said.

She ducked her head, trembling.

"Nora, come out this instant," her mom said.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"So help me, if you don't come out, I'll lock you in the closet all day tomorrow!" her mom
bellowed.

Being locked in a closet all day was often her punishment
on the weekends. The days of darkness were brutal and lonely. She didn't want to be trapped in the closet, even if it meant suffering now.

She knew what she had to do.

"I'm here, Mom." She crawled out from beneath the table.

Her mom's cold eyes landed on her
, making her flinch.

"There you are," her mom said. "What were you doing?"

She did what any child her age would do when terrified—she lied.

"Playing hide-and-seek," she said.

"I'm in no mood for your games." Her mom wrinkled her nose and hauled her closer. "Come here."

Nora trembled as she was
pulled against her mom's thin body. On a good day, she loved the feeling of her parent as she curled up against her. On a bad day, she hated even being near her.

"Look at this picture." Her mom shook the p
hotograph she was holding under her nose.

Nora looked down. It was a p
icture of her dad. The man was tall with long brown hair that fell into hazel eyes. She'd come to loathe the sight of him. After all, the photograph was often the cause of her mom's insanity.

And
when her mom went insane, she was the one who was punished.

"Your father," her mom said. "He left because of you."

She should have been numb to her mom's cruel words by now, but she wasn't. Instead every time her mom told her about her dad's departure, the pain made her heart fester and rot. By now, she'd never forget the truth, even if she wanted to.

"I know," Nora
said.

"It's
your entire fault." Her mom shook her until her head bobbed. "You ruined everything. We were going to get married, but then you came."

"I know," she said
again because that was what her mom wanted to hear.

"You're such a nuisance," her mom
said. "I could change my life, but you…you're still here!"

The words made her flinch. She tried not to cry
, but she couldn't control herself. Tears slipped out. All she wanted to do was be a good girl so her mom would smile at her again. Yet it was too hard during times like these.

"I'm sorry, Mom," she
said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

She clung onto her mom's clothes, desperate for a hug, a gentle touch, anything.

Her mom's nostrils flared as she stared down at her. Then, as if the wind blew the woman's madness away, her eyes softened. The woman petted her head.

"There now," her mom said. "Don't cry."

It was too late. She was crying.

"I'm…so…sorry…"
Nora's bottom lip trembled.

"I know." Her mom sighed, then
seized her hand. "I know what will make you feel better. Chocolate. Do you want some chocolate?"

Her mom worked at a c
andy factory. She was always bringing her chocolate.

"Y-yeah." She nodded.

"Okay." Her mom led her to the door.

Nora awoke with a
start, sweat on her brow. For a moment, she thought she was back at the old house again, trembling because of her mom's outburst. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she was in her apartment. She was an adult now, an adult who took care of herself. Her mom was long gone and she had no intention of ever finding out where she'd went. She was certain that if she ever laid eyes on the woman's face again, she would remember every last moment of pain.

As she rubbed her chest, she stared down at the bed sheets.
Why did I dream about my mom again?
At first she thought she should blame the nightmare—no, the memory—on last night's food binge, but she knew that wasn't the case at all. No, she'd had the nightmare because she'd told Gideon about her past. Doors had been opened in her heart yesterday that had been sealed shut for a long time.

I'm such an idiot!
she screamed in her head.

It had been years since
she'd had dreams about her mom. She'd thought she'd gotten over the pains of her past, but now she was having nightmares again. Geez. She lay back down and touched her face, discovering it was damp with sweat and something worse.

Tears.

Apparently while she fought her hardest not to cry during the daytime, she still wept at night. She curled up in a ball, furious with herself for letting the past hurt her. As she struggled to get her bearings straight, she heard a thud and then a meow. Chubby was on the bed and waddling toward her, his orange eyes bright. After he reached her, he curled up at her side. When she ran her fingers through his thick fur, she thought,
How did he know how much I needed him right now?

When Chubby stared into her face, she realized it didn't matter how the cat knew that
he was needed—all that mattered was that he did.

****

The next morning, Nora stood behind the service desk at the tea shop. She hadn't managed to fall back asleep after her nightmare and had spent hours with Chubby, trying to clear her mind. Unfortunately, her lack of sleep was catching up with her now. She'd managed to mess up three times today and it wasn't even eleven o'clock yet.

As she gritte
d her teeth, the door to the shop opened.
Gideon,
she thought, looking up. But it wasn't Gideon at all. It was Robert. Something happened then that shouldn't have happened—her stomach sunk. She'd wanted to see Gideon.

No way!
she screamed in her mind.

She'd told
the guy about her mom to intimidate him, hadn't she? Why was she disappointed that he hadn't come to hassle her? She groaned in despair and started punching herself in the forehead.
Why am I so stupid? I don't like the superficial playboy.
She writhed and continued her self-mutilation.

"Ugh, Nora?" Robert raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Hold on a minute." She continued to whack herself on the head. "I need to finish hurting myself. This is for my own good."

Robert seized her wrist.

"What's wrong?" Robert asked.

A
woman couldn't even hurt herself in peace. She gave an exasperated sigh.

"Nothing." She placed her hands on her hips. "But there
's going to be something wrong with you in the next few minutes."

Robert took a step back.

"You're mad about last night, right?" Robert asked nervously.

"I'm v
ery, very, very—"

"Nora, I can explain," Robert said.

"—very, very, very mad." Her eyes narrowed. "How could you betray me by leaving me with Gideon? I made it perfectly clear how I felt about the guy, but you used me so you could date a model. I didn't realize our friendship meant so little to you."

"Our friendship means everything to me." Robert inched toward her.

"At least have the decency to be honest." She scowled. "Now you've betrayed me
and
you're lying about it. My trust in you is fading fast."

Robert took a deep breath.

"Okay, I can understand why you're mad, but I didn't set you up with Gideon for the reason you think I did," Robert said.

"Oh, I know exactly why you
set me up with Gideon." She crossed her arms, her eyebrow twitching. "You fancied yourself a date with a beautiful supermodel."

"I didn't
do it because of that," he said.

"Bull." She wrinkled her nose.

"I did it for Gideon." Robert hung his head in shame. "I felt bad for the guy, so I caved when he asked me to help him."

Judging by how red his face was, Robert was telling the truth.
He hadn't abandoned her just for a date with a model after all.

"You felt bad for him?"
She was mystified. "Why?"

Gideon was rich and handsome. Women fell at his feet. Why
would Robert pity a guy who could have anything he wanted at the snap of his fingers? Well, except for her, that is.

"
Gideon likes you, Nora." Robert let out a defeated sigh. "I mean,
really
likes you."

"He does not.
" What a joke! "He wants to sleep with me. He even admits that's the reason he's being so aggressive."

Her friend gave an exasperated
sigh.

"
You and Gideon are so alike it's disgusting," Robert said.

That was the worst insult anyone could
have given her.

"
What an awful thing to say." She had the urge to throttle him. "I don't remember trying to seduce people or anything like that."

"No, that's not what I mean." Robert's shoulders slumped. "I love you, Nora.
You know that I do."

"You have a fine way of showing it," she
said nastily.

"
Unfortunately, you put up a shield whenever somebody wants to get close to you," Robert continued, ignoring her snarky comment. "Gideon's doing it too. Don't you see that? He sleeps around so he'll never have to be close to somebody, but now he's only pursuing you. He may say that he wants to jump into bed with you—heck, he probably believes it himself—but he's just using it as an excuse to stick around. He wants you in his life, but he's too scared to admit it."

For a moment she contemplated his words
, but then she shook her head. No, she didn't believe what Robert was saying. This was what happened when one had a romantic best friend. Robert binge watched romantic comedies like no one else she'd ever met. He was confusing television with real life.

"I'm not an actress in one of those movies you like to watch." She
drummed her fingers on the desk. "I'm not even a heroine in a romance novel. I'm an average, ordinary person in an average, ordinary world. The truth is Gideon is after my body, just like he says he is. We won't end up together. He'll give up on me—heck, he may have given up already—and we'll go our separate ways. That's how real life works."

If
she was wrong about that, then she'd poison herself.

"How about we bet on it?" Robert grinned.

"You must be joking." She wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, I'm not," Robert said. "I bet you twenty bucks you and Gideon are going to end up together. I mean, for life. Marriage, babies, the whole deal. You may have your head buried
in the sand, but I don't. The two of you have amazing chemistry."

"We have a deal," she said.

Robert beamed and held out his hand. She shook it.

Easiest twenty bucks I'll ever make…

****

At four o'clock, Nora stared at the door
sadly before heading into the backroom where the extra tea was kept. After she checked the storage log one last time, she blew out a sigh.
Gideon didn't come…
The thought made her so disappointed it stunned her. Why on earth was she feeling depressed? She should have been skipping for joy right now, not biting her bottom lip in frustration. She'd gotten what she wanted. Gideon wasn't coming back. And yet…

And yet s
he felt a wave of melancholy so strong it had the potential to cripple her.

"I hate you so much, Gideon!
" she yelled.

"Do you?" Gideon
said from outside the backroom.