The One In My Heart

In the wake of our mirth, a small silence fell. He closed the flap of the messenger bag and I was suddenly speaking again. “I’ve seen you around a few times.”


He glanced at me. “Last time I saw you, you wore a shirt that said, ‘To err is human; to really screw things up requires a computer programmer.’”

“Nerd humor.” The shirt had been given to me by my friend Carolyn, who was in corporate IT security.

“Do you know your age in binary?”

I’d minored in computer science, so I did happen to know it. “One hundred thousand.”

“I have been known to like an older woman,” he replied, deadpan.

I chortled, feeling…elated, almost.

“That’s thirty-two, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. You?”

“I’ll be thirty-two in a few months.”

So I really was an older woman here. Hmm.

He leaned back an inch. “I’ll see you around, Evangeline. Thanks for the ride.”

He already had his fingers on the door handle, but I wasn’t ready to let him go—since he appeared, I hadn’t freaked out about Zelda at all. “Umm…It was really nice of me to give you a ride. Do you think you can share some of your tiramisu with me?”

He considered. “That depends.”

I was already smiling again from his mock-pompous tone. “On what?”

“On whether you are a secret princess.”

“Of course I am.”

“How would I know that?”

“There’s a picture of me online in a diamond tiara and a ball gown.” Which was not a lie. “I’m the real deal.”

Something flickered in his eyes before he gave me a look to let me know he was reserving judgment. “Okay, then. You can come and have some tiramisu.”

A thrill leaped through me. We got out of the car. Bennett dealt with the house’s security system. I, waiting behind him, happened to glance down at myself—and barely managed to suppress a yelp.

Wherever my wet white T-shirt clung to my skin, I was practically naked. The flesh-tone cotton bra I wore underneath didn’t appear to have turned as transparent, but it was thin, and Bennett would have to be blind not to see the outline of my cold-hardened nipples.

Hastily I crossed my arms over my chest. Without turning around, he asked, “Do you want me to find you a bathrobe or something like that to wear?”

My other choice would be to go back to Collette’s house. But the closer I came to tiramisu, the more reluctant I was to give it up. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

He showed me bathroom to the left of the front door. I ducked inside, nearly squealing again at my reflection. Then I covered my mouth and tried not to giggle. What a mess I was tonight.

But tiramisu was going to make everything better.

I stripped off my clothes, glad to be rid of their sodden weight. Bennett delivered a fluffy white towel and a blue lightweight bathrobe. When I came out of the bathroom, he was waiting for me.

“I can put your clothes in the dryer,” he told me.

He was back a moment later to lead me down the central passage toward the back. The house was an Architectural Digest editor’s dream come true. But I didn’t give a second glance to the console table that would make an Antiques Roadshow appraiser jump for joy, or the paintings on the walls that were probably American Impressionist originals, by artists who had once thrived right here in Cos Cob.

Instead I took in the man in front of me, the soft-looking olive-green Henley shirt, the jeans that hung just right on his hips, the sexy gait, his strides long and easy, his footsteps almost silent on the gleaming wood floor. My adrenaline-soaked perception had lied to me earlier: He wasn’t at all built like a linebacker, but along far more lithe and sinewy lines—kind of like his car, actually.

His kitchen was high ceilinged, with exposed beams and three exposed brick walls. Neat stacks of bowls and plates sat on open shelves. He took two plates and two spoons and placed them on the central island, shifting aside a bowl of red Bartlett pears and a vase of yellow daisies.

Now he pulled open a refrigerated drawer set beneath the counter of the island and took out a dish of—no kidding—honest-to-goodness tiramisu, with a thick dusting of cocoa powder and generous sprinkles of chocolate shavings.

I sucked in a breath.

“You look like an ER patient, the kind who comes in jonesing for a fix,” he said.

I sat down on a bar stool opposite him. “Well, prescribe me my drug of choice, Doctor.”

He handed me a heaping serving. The tiramisu was fresh and not too sweet, with just enough espresso and dark chocolate to cut the decadence of mascarpone cheese and whipped cream. I devoured it.

“Where’d you get this? It’s so good.”

“My housekeeper made it,” he said, watching me.

Something in his gaze made my heart thump. Had I thought he wasn’t interested in me? That indifference was nowhere to be seen now.

“So…what kind of surgeon are you?”

A kettle trilled. He poured hot water into a mug and pushed it toward me, along with a box of assorted teabags. “Cardiothoracic. But I’m still doing my fellowship.”