Her eyes narrowed again. “What are you talking about?”

He was starting to wonder. “Your outfit.”

She held her jacket away from her body and looked down before glaring at him. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing.” Not one damn thing.

“I don’t understand you.”

They finally found something they agreed on. “Yeah, same.”

“I meant the room. Everyone in here.” She had her back to the room but she wasn’t wrong. Most of the eating and talking had stopped when she walked in.

He thought about pointing out how standing in the middle of the room for no apparent reason would only ratchet up the problem but he motioned to his now-empty table instead. “Ignore them.”

“That’s not so easy.”

“They’re staring at both of us and you still need to eat. So, dinner?”

She nodded and walked past him. Didn’t even stop as she muttered, “This isn’t a date.”

“Okay.”

It took another ten minutes for her to get settled, sip some water, and scan the menu. As far as awkward dates went, he’d had worse. But, as she pointed out numerous times, this wasn’t actually a date anyway.

Before he could come up with a half-intelligent sentence to break through the crust of ice growing between them, she looked up. “The lemon chicken, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“The other day.” She folded the menu and set it down on her plate. “You said it was good.”

“You remembered.”

She sighed. “Connor . . .”

“I meant that I didn’t think you heard me when I praised it.” She had him spinning in circles. The sensation kept him dizzy and off balance, and he didn’t hate it. “It’s very good.”

The waitress broke into the stilted conversation, took their order, and left. Connor almost hated to see her go. With the food-choice part out of the way, that left the slog of conversation until the plates arrived. He’d never felt this on edge with a woman, as if one tiny step would send him sailing into her off-limits category.

She leaned back in her chair with her elbows balanced on the armrests. “You’re a workaholic.”

“Interesting conversation starter.” But not wrong. When she didn’t say anything else, he decided to go with it. “Who told you that?”

“I read it.”

“That’s written somewhere?”

“I studied up on you.”

He took a drink of water because his brain picked that moment to shut off. He had no idea how to respond without running into trouble and took a few stalling seconds to figure it out. “Because?”

She shrugged. “A smart woman checks on a man before they have dinner.”

“Okay . . . yeah, that makes sense.” It did. She should investigate him. Ask around. Carry mace. Whatever she needed to do to stay safe. She was fine with him, but she had no way of knowing that and shouldn’t take his word for it.

“So?”