He also didn’t want to have a painful erection throughout the entire meal. He’d been hard the whole night sitting next to her. Then rock-hard when she’d teased him with her delicious blow-job imagery. But the more he consumed her lips, the more trouble he’d be in. Better stop now.

He pulled back, thrilling at the look on her face. Lips parted slightly, eyes closed. Then she shuddered and opened her eyes, as if she were dragging herself out of a trip down Unexpected Lust Lane.

“Who said you’d be romancing me?” she countered as she reached for her fork and dove into her plate of pasta primavera.

“I say it,” he said, as he took a bite of his chicken.

“Maybe I’m only going on one date with you.”

“I’ll have to find a way to convince you for more then. I’ll see if I have any tricks up my sleeve.”

She took another bite, chewed, then set down her fork. Her expression turned serious. “Actually, I hate to be blunt, but I’ve learned a thing or two about being upfront, seeing as how I failed to be upfront about something really important for ten years.”

“What do you mean?” he asked after he finished his bite and took a drink of his wine.

“What I mean is I’m not interested in getting involved with someone who has intimacy issues,” she said in a direct tone of voice. She didn’t mince words. She didn’t pull punches. She simply told him. “I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. And I know I shouldn’t be judgmental, given my job, but my reality is I was in love with a good friend of mine for ten years from a distance. From afar. I never said a word to him until he’d already fallen madly in love with someone else. He had no clue I had any feelings for him. Even if I had told him, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He never saw me that way. He never thought of me romantically.”

“That makes no sense to me,” Jack said, speaking plainly. He could only see Michelle romantically. How any man could look at her and talk to her and not want to know her more confounded him.

She sighed, took another bite, and then continued on when she’d finished. “And that was three months ago, when it all came to a head. And it’s fine. We’re all good. But my point in bringing this up is I’m the poster child for unrequited love. And while I’m certainly not asking for love, the bottom line is, I don’t think you’ll be romancing me because I can’t risk my heart again for someone who might be closed down,” she said, and her words were like a heavy stone around his neck.

That described him perfectly. Closed down. Shut down. Battered and broken with guilt. “I’m not closed down,” he muttered, denying the truth he knew inside himself.

She reached for his hand, and laid hers on top of it. “We don’t have to bullshit, Jack. I’m not some blushing twenty-two year old who read in the paper that you were New York’s most eligible bachelor and wants to nab you. I have a business, a career, a respectable profession, a brother and sister-in-law I love dearly, and very close friends. I’m fine. But when you’ve been in love with someone who didn’t love you, it really makes you protect your heart from anyone and everyone,” she said, and those words stung him more than she could ever know. “We had a great time last night and I’m having a lovely time tonight. But this can’t be anything. From what I can gather your heart is still with someone else.”