“Everyone knew you, Brianna. You had a rep before you stepped across the threshold of Monroe High.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he were stating a truism anyone would understand. “You were a rich kid. All the privileges. Your dad was a professor at Tulane, right?” He popped a peanut into his mouth.

She nodded, though his account was a slight misconception. The meager wealth in their family had come from her mother’s inheritance.

“So, I figured you’d go to college, find Mr. Right at a sorority dance or something. He’d end up being a lawyer or a doctor or maybe even a politician, and you’d settle down and have a passel of kids.”

“As I said, you didn’t know me.”

“I paid attention.”

“To a freshman girl?”

Again, the crooked smile.

Again, the stupid racing of her heart. Oh, God, she hoped to high heaven she wasn’t blushing.

“I paid attention to all freshman girls.” He hesitated, thought a second. “Really, come to think of it, to all girls. It’s a guy thing. Isn’t that what women say?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, and even chuckled a little. She was surprised that he’d noticed her; hadn’t dared believed he’d even registered that she’d walked the same overly polished halls of the same school he barely attended.

“You ever marry?”

The question surprised her, but it probably shouldn’t have. Shaking her head, she studied the dark depths of her wineglass. “I got close once,” she said. “I was engaged.” Briefly. Like for ten seconds!

“What happened?”

“Didn’t work out. I got cold feet.”

More like ice-cold frigid-as-hell feet.

“Runaway bride?”

“More like never-made-it-near-the-altar bride,” she said. Then, refusing to think about that time in her life, she threw it back at him. “You?”

“No, never even got close.” He scratched the back of his neck. “There were a couple of girls, well, women who might’ve worked out, but I don’t know . . .” He paused, leaning against the back of the booth, and she guessed that he did know but was equivocating to avoid discussing a subject that bothered him. “I guess I didn’t have much of a role model for a relationship. My old man raised me. Never knew my mother, and my grandparents . . .” He shrugged. “They were just old, you know? Then again”—he reached for his bottle—“maybe I just never found the right woman.”

“Oh, I smell a cop-out,” she said, hiding the fact that her pulse leaped whenever their eyes met. She buried her nose in her glass.

“Probably.” He cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re single?”