The Art of Enchantment (Life is a Journey Book 1)
Page 36
"Yes, that's true. Excuse my rudeness. I'm surprised to see you after all these years." He dropped his eyes, scanning down to her feet and up again. "Kate."
She'd seen his expression metamorphose from bewilderment to a cool blank stare, but not before she saw a flicker of annoyance there. That was no surprise. She was likely the last person on earth he wanted to see, let alone work with. However passionate their youthful affair had been, he clearly remembered, as she did, its sordid ending.
Her ribs tightened like a clamp around her lungs, squeezing. Warning. Stop it!
He couldn't possibly know how he'd broken her fragile heart when he dumped her, or that her unrequited love for him had grown into a malignant obsession that was nearly her undoing. That was her dirty little secret.
What the hell am I going to do? She reached out her trembling hand, petrified at the effect his touch would have on her. "Likewise," she murmured.
He inclined his head and gave her hand a gentle but masculine shake. Did his grip linger overlong, or had time slowed down? All her nerve endings zinged with the electrical knowledge of him, his skin touching her skin, and she could not take her eyes off their joined hands or form another coherent thought. A great weight on her chest seemed to be crushing the air out of her. She lifted her shoulders up and swallowed through a throat that seemed to be closing up, stiffening, as though she'd swallowed a bag of rocks. She recognized all the familiar signs of a panic attack, but it had been years. She'd been fine. This can't be happening to me.
He squinted at her, a subtle smile curving the taut bow of his lips and she jerked her hand away as though she'd been burnt. He's laughing at me! She was ridiculous, getting all worked up now. This shouldn't matter. But it did. It did.
It was happening again. The anxiety. She couldn't trust her own reaction to him. Looking at him made her instantly realize he had the same effect, unwittingly triggering painful memories of her trauma, tangling up her reactions to him. Attraction, obsession and repulsion. She'd thought those days were long past, all of her skeletons buried.
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