“You’re more than flattered when I kiss you, Shannon. We both know what happens then.”

She jabbed a piece of chicken. “All right, I’m attracted. You’re an attractive man, with some charm. But if I’d been considering taking it any further, I wouldn’t now.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Christ, but she was a pleasure to converse with, he thought. “And why would that be, when you want me as much as I want you?”

She had to rub her dampening palms on her napkin. “Because it’s an obvious mistake. We’re looking at this from two different angles, and they’re never going to come together. I like you. You’re an interesting man. But I’m simply not looking for a relationship. Damn it, I ended one only weeks ago. I was practically engaged.” Inspiration struck. She leaned forward, her smile smug. “I was sleeping with him.”

Murphy’s brows quirked. “Was seems to be the key. You must have cared for him.”

“Of course I cared for him. I don’t jump into bed with strangers.” Hearing herself, she hissed out a breath. How had he managed to turn that around on her?

“It’s past tense as I see it. I’ve cared enough about a woman or two to lie with her. But I never loved one before you.”

Panic had the color draining out of her face. “You’re not in love with me.”

“I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you.” He said it so quietly, so simply, that she believed—for a moment completely believed. “Before that, somehow. I’ve waited for you, Shannon. And here you are.”

“This isn’t happening,” she said shakily and pushed away from the table. “Now, you listen to me, you put this whole insane business out of your mind. It’s not going to work. You’re romanticizing the situation. Hallucinating. All you’re going to accomplish is to embarrass both of us.”

His eyes narrowed, but she was too busy fuming to notice the change, or the danger in it. “My loving you is an embarrassment to you.”

“Don’t twist my words around,” she said furiously. “And don’t try to make me seem small and shallow because I’m not interested in being courted. Jesus, courted. Even the word’s ridiculous.”

“There’s another you’d prefer?”

“No, there’s not another I’d prefer. What I prefer, and expect, is for you to drop it.”

He sat quietly a moment, dealing with a slowly building anger. “Because you have no feelings for me?”

“That’s right.” And because it was a lie, her voice sharpened. “Do you really have some deluded idea that I’d just fall in meekly with whatever absurd plans you’re cooking up? Marry you, live here? A farmer’s wife, for God’s sake. Do I look like a farmer’s wife? I’ve got a career, a life.”

He moved so quickly she only had time to suck in one shocked breath. His hands were on her arms, fingers dug in. His face was a study of the pale and dark of fury.

“And my life’s beneath you?” he demanded. “What I have, what I’ve worked for, even what I am is something less? Something to be scorned?”