“Don’t worry.” She almost confessed that she was used to it because her best friend was Nicole Raven, but she stopped herself in time. Even if Brendan and Nicole had worked together, there was no way she’d reveal her friend’s presence. “Do you get hounded by the press a lot?”

“The press? No.” He shook his head. “More that I’m hounding them because a certain amount of publicity is useful when a book comes out. But I don’t get followed down the street or anything. Occasionally a reader recognizes me, but when they do, I’m grateful. Without readers I wouldn’t have this job.”

She’d looked him up and read a couple of detailed features on him, so she knew the public were interested in the man behind the books.

And in that moment the reality of the situation hit her. She was here, on a date, with Brendan Scott. And she felt like an impostor. In her head she could hear Richard’s voice telling her she was no fun. She tried to block it out, but the words were imprinted on her memory. The pressure to be entertaining company almost had her walking out of the restaurant.

When Brendan had suggested dinner it had sounded like a good idea, but now she was here, sitting across from him it felt intimate and awkward and totally different from the encounters they’d had when he’d been wearing cutoff shorts and four days of stubble.

Flustered, she studied the menu without seeing anything on the page.

What was she going to talk about? The weather? She was going to bore him to death before the main course was served.

Brendan put his menu down. “I probably ought to warn you that there is every chance I’ve actually forgotten how to do this.”

“This?” She looked up and tried to look natural and not as if she was close to having a panic attack. “You mean eating dinner?”

“No. I never forget how to eat. That’s a talent I was born with.” He smiled. “I mean being sociable. I’ve been trapped indoors focused on the book for so long I may have forgotten how to talk to an actual person. Most of the people I’ve been relating to over the past couple of months have been fictional. I’m not sure I can remember how to converse with a real human being, so you’ll have to be patient and forgive me if I’m less than scintillating company.”

He was worried that he might not be good company?

She almost laughed. “It’s a new experience for me too, but for different reasons.”

“You haven’t been out much since your divorce?”