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He saw she looked wounded, and that he had insulted her by insinuating she wouldn’t make a great Mrs. Ballard just the way she was.
But he felt he saw a truth about her that she might have been missing herself: that what she was wearing now was a disguise of sorts intended to hide who she really was.
“Look,” he said, hastily, “you look fine the way you are. But if I don’t end up buying your building, you’ve given me your time for nothing. Let me do something for you. Consider it a thank-you in advance.”
Pride played across her face, but he saw the faintest wistfulness in the quick glance she cast at the door. He knew it! She had every woman’s delight in shopping!
Still, when he held open the door of the store for her and she marched by him, she was scowling.
He touched the place where her brow was knit. “Have fun!” he instructed her.
She looked at him, glanced around the store. He could clearly see she was struggling with a decision, and he was relieved when something in her relaxed.
“Okay,” she said, and gave him a small, careful smile. It occurred to him that that smile changed everything, changed far more than a dress ever could. He saw the radiance in her, and realized the sighting was precious, the part of herself, along with her femininity, that she kept hidden.
It was a treasure he felt drawn to find.
Still, her idea of fun turned out to be a menace, because she gave him the trashy version of Mrs. Ballard. She flounced out of the dressing room in a too short white leather skirt and a hot-pink halter top, flipped a dark wave of luscious hair over her naked shoulder and watched his reaction solemnly.
The truth was he was flummoxed. She looked awful. And yet his mouth went absolutely dry at the slender temptation of her perfect curves, her toned and tanned legs, the glimpse of her belly button where the top didn’t quite meet the skirt.
When he struggled for words, and all that came out was an uncertain Ah, the solemn look faded from her face and she laughed. She was kidding him, paying him back.
But when she laughed her whole face lit up and her eyes danced with mischief, and he knew he’d glimpsed the treasure he’d been looking for. The real Samantha Hall, despite the costume she had put on.
A half hour later and a half dozen more sedate outfits later, she emerged from the dressing room and twirled in front of him. The defensiveness had left her, and he was delighted at how thoroughly she was enjoying herself. From the sassiness of her pose, she knew it was the perfect outfit, and so did he.
She wore a summer skirt, of light silk, an amazing blend of seaside colors, the turquoise of the sea and the pale blue of the sky. She had paired it with casual sandals that showed the delicate lines of her feet, and he remembered the white-hot feeling of holding that tiny foot in the palm of his hand last night.
When she twirled, her loose, glossy hair fanned out and the skirt flew around her, revealing, again, those amazing legs, and hinting at her gypsy spirit. She had on a cream linen jacket, that she hadn’t done up, and under it was a camisole so simple there should be no reason that it made his mouth go as dry as the more flamboyant pink halter top she had tried on first.
“What do you think?” she asked.
He thought she was the perfect Mrs. Ballard. He thought he had dragged her in here to show her something of herself, and had seen something of himself instead. That he was vulnerable to her.
“You look perfect,” he said gruffly, and then tried to short-circuit his own vulnerability, to make her stop looking at him like that, in a way that made his heart feel like it would swoop out of his chest and land in the palms of her hands. “Let’s go dupe the Finkles.”
The happy look faded from her face, and he was sorry even though he knew it was better for both of them if they didn’t forget what this was all about.
“This is the one,” she said, suddenly cool. “Let’s go.”
He mourned the loss of the magic of the moments they had just shared, even as he knew they made things way too complicated.
At the front desk, Samantha went outside while he paid. The clerk offered to package up the old clothes for him, but he just shook his head. Even if she was mad at him, he never wanted to see her in those clothes—that particular lie—again.
She didn’t ask about her clothes when he joined her. Her eyes were challenging him to back down, to say the subterfuge had gone far enough.
But the look of disdain in her eyes was so much safer for him than the look in her eyes when she had been twirling in front of him, filled with glorious certainty of herself, that he felt more committed than ever to his plan. They’d visit the Finkles, he’d take her home. Leave her with the outfit to assuage some faint guilt he was feeling. If he did end up buying her building, he would keep it strictly business.
Though he wasn’t sure how, since he had utterly failed to keep things strictly business so far.
What if it could be real?
He didn’t even know her, he scoffed at himself. But when he looked at her, her eyes distant, her chin pointed upward with stubbornness and pride, he felt like he did know her. Or wanted to.
“What’s the plan now?” she said.
“We’ll go to the Finkles. Let’s just say we’re engaged instead of married,” he told her.
The stiff look of pride left her face and something crumpled in her eyes. “Even dressed up, I’m not good enough, am I?”
“No!” he said, stunned at her conclusion. “That’s not it at all. The problem is you are way too good for me. Duper of old people, remember?”
And then he hurriedly opened the car door and held it for her, before he gave into the temptation to take her in his arms and erase any thought she’d ever had about not being good enough, before he gave in to the temptation to kiss her until she had not a doubt left about who she really was, a woman, who deserved more than she had ever asked of the world.
He knew if he was smart, he would just pass the turnoff he was looking for and take her straight back to St. John’s Cove, cut his losses.
But now he felt he had to prove to her it was him that was unworthy, not her.
It was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done, to continue this charade.
But looking back over the events of the last day, since he had first seen Samantha Hall standing at the altar beside his cousin, it seemed to Ethan Ballard he had not made one smart decision. Not one.
He glanced at the woman sitting with her dog slobbering all over her new silk skirt, trying to read her expression.
“Look,” he said awkwardly, “any man would be lucky to call you his wife. And that was before we went shopping.” He was a little shocked by how much he meant that, but he had failed to convince her.
He wanted to just call this whole thing off, forget the Finkles and go home to the mess-free life he took such pride in.
“Humph,” she said skeptically.
If he did call it off now, was Samantha really going to think she had failed to measure up to his standard for a wife? He sighed at how complicated this innocent little deceit had become.
Here he was smack-dab in the middle of a mess of his own making.
Samantha Hall looked straight ahead, refusing to meet his eyes, but the dog slid him a contemptuous look and growled low in its throat.
Ethan Ballard thought he had heard somewhere that dogs were excellent judges of character.
“I used to play baseball,” he said. It was a measure of his desperation that he was trying to win