You Made Me Love You

by Neesa Hart

  Eli laughed. “And I suppose your interactions with poor Martin have only fueled your reservations over the past few weeks.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “He’s aggressive about getting you what you want.”

  “I pay him to be.” Eli shrugged. “And as I said, he cares deeply about Grace. He’d do anything for her.”

  “Oh, yes. Grace.” Liza settled back in her chair. When she crossed her legs, he got a tantalizing glimpse of smooth, tanned thighs. “We might as well discuss that before I meet her. I really can’t commit to you that I’ll teach her until I’ve seen—”

  Eli didn’t let her finish. Instead, he leaned forward to balance his elbows on his knees. “Liza.” He liked the way her name sounded on his lips. “Please, do one thing for me before you decide.”

  Her eyes widened. “One thing? It seems like I’ve spent the last two weeks doing things for you. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  The quip warmed him. “All right, one more thing.”

  “I’m not saying that I won’t teach her, you know.” She frowned at him. “It’s just that I teach only the one class in the summer. It’s selective, and I have to evaluate her skill level first. We want her to have the teacher who can meet her needs, and I may not be the best choice.”

  “You are,” he told her.

  “Why do you think so?”

  He didn’t dare tell her. Not so soon. What would she say if he admitted that he’d begun to fear there was no life left in his body until he’d watched her dance? He drew a deep, calming breath. “I told you earlier. I’ve just got a feeling about it. I know my daughter, and I know what she needs right now. You’re it.”

  “Look, Eli.” She stared at him. “You can’t just go through life bullying everyone into giving you your way, you know.”

  He ignored that. “After you meet her, I don’t think this will be an issue anymore.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He pressed the only advantage he had. “Can we just agree to let nature take its course? It’s going to be very difficult for Grace to leave New York. She’s spent her entire life here. Her memories of her mother are here. That’s why I insisted you come. I thought if she met you, if you met her—” He shrugged. “I hoped it would be easier.”

  Liza was searching his face with a probing intensity that made him nervous. “You haven’t told her, have you?”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Grace doesn’t know we’re going to Terrance—at least, not to stay.”

  She looked around the apartment. “What does she think you did with the furniture?”

  “She hasn’t asked.”

  “And you haven’t offered. Very cowardly, Eli.”

  He winced as the accusation struck a nerve. “It’s such a big change. I wasn’t sure how to approach it.”

  She shook her head as she smoothed the fabric of her dress over her legs. “So you want me to break it to her? Have you always been this much of a wimp?”

  “I don’t think so. Since Grace came to live with me—” he shrugged—“I’m afraid of everything most of the time.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Except of making absurd propositions to women you hardly know?”

  She had no idea how really absurd he’d like this particular proposition to be, he thought. He decided to play his final card. “Look, I want Grace to meet you because I know she’ll love the idea of dancing with you.”

  “Why are you so certain?”

  “I’ve seen you dance.”

  Liza went perfectly still. He felt the cessation of movement, almost as if her heart had stopped beating. “I haven’t danced professionally in ten years.” Her voice was dangerously quiet.

  “Three weeks ago. I saw you then.”

  “Three weeks—” She stared at him. “The recital.”

  “I waited. I was in the auditorium.”

  “You watched me.”

  He couldn’t decipher the note in her voice, but suspected a hint of accusation. “Yes.”

  “No one was supposed to be there.”

  “That’s what made it beautiful.”

  She ignored the compliment. “I don’t dance in public anymore.”

  “You should.”

  Her jaw squared. “That’s my choice, though, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have spied on me.”

  “Probably not, but I did, and I knew.” He leaned in, so close she could feel him speak. “I knew you could bring Grace back to me.”

  Three hours later, he slanted a look at Liza’s profile. She sat across from him at an Italian restaurant down the street from his apartment. She studied the patrons with avid interest as she studiously avoided looking at him. After agreeing to meet him for dinner, she’d returned to her hotel that afternoon, where she’d changed into a pair of yellow and green trousers and a red cotton short-sleeved sweater. The outfit should have clashed. His former wife, he knew, would have looked at it with utter disdain. Liza made it work, though. It seemed to echo the current of energy that ran just beneath the surface of her skin.

  Silently, he acknowledged that that energy was just one of the things that drew him to her. Her love of color—in her external and, he was beginning to believe, internal life—seemed almost incongruous to his increasingly bleak existence. That transfusion he was hoping for might not be so very far away. He had a pressing feeling that if he could simply touch her—deeply—some of that energy would flow through him.

  After all, she’d come to New York. She’d agreed to meet his daughter and help her make the transition tomorrow. She’d even agreed to have dinner with him tonight. He was beginning to believe almost anything was possible.

  He’d handled things badly this afternoon. Demanding that she teach Grace, struggling to impress her with his life and his success had made him look like a fool. Even the thought made his lips twitch. He probably hadn’t bungled anything quite so thoroughly as this since he’d tried to ask Gloria Stefano to the seventh-grade dance. For the last few years, as his research had begun to attain international recognition, his employers had spent thousands of dollars on PR consultants who were supposed to have taught him the finer points of interpersonal communication. In his mind, he’d spent too much time out of the lab wooing potential financial backers, and not enough time conducting research. Big discoveries demanded big dollars, however, and as the pressures of his job had increased, so had his skill at playing to a crowd.

  If they’d seen him in action today, they’d have concluded that he was a lost cause. He was fairly certain he couldn’t have made any more mistakes had he tried.

  Still, through some miraculous twist of divine intervention, Liza hadn’t told him no. For the first time since that awful day three months ago when his former mother-in-law had called to tell him that Mara was dead, he felt like he’d survive this. With unshakable conviction, he knew that the woman across from him was going to help him, and his daughter, put their lives back together. When he’d seen her dance, he’d sensed a deep reservoir of pain in her—she’d experienced something, seen something, that had left deep wounds on her soul. Yet somehow she’d managed to embrace that pain and turn it into a passion for life. While he—he had simply allowed his own grief and guilt to render him emotionally distant. She’d help him find his way back—if he studied her, worked hard enough to unravel her secrets, Liza would show him the way.

  Liza seemed to sense his watchful gaze on her face. She glanced at him over the top of her menu. “Do I have something in my hair?”

  “No,” he said, wondering what she’d do if he confessed that he was analyzing her like a lab specimen. “I was trying to figure out why you’re still here.”

  Her lips lifted in an ironic smile. “That makes two of us.”

  “I didn’t handle things very well this afternoon.”

  “You could say that.”

  “I should have explained weeks ago why I wanted you to come here today. I should have asked you directly if you were willing to help us. I’m sorry I pressured you.
”

  “You should have asked me weeks ago if you could watch me dance, too. That didn’t stop you.”

  “It was an indescribable experience.” She had, he thought, the most alluring way of looking at him. “I wish you wouldn’t let it make you uncomfortable.”

  “I can’t help it. It embarrasses me to know that you were watching me.”

  There it was again, that unabashed honesty that seemed so rare in the world where he lived. “I understand that.”

  “How can you?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a personal thing. Science isn’t so very different from art, you know? I know there are some things I do, risks I take in the lab, that I’d prefer to keep to myself. What I saw—it was intimate. Had you known I was there, you wouldn’t have shown it to me.”

  “No. I wouldn’t have.”

  “I’m not sorry I watched,” he admitted.

  “That’s part of the problem.” She frowned. “I’m not sure how to take that. I think you should be sorry, but it’s hard to say when I’m not so certain that I’m sorry you watched. It’s weird.”

  Eli searched her face, her eyes, for any clue that might tell him what she was thinking. She couldn’t know, could she, that he’d decided that night that he wanted to have an affair with this woman? Yet—he probed the heightened flush on her cheeks—she must have known the sensual pace of the dance, the sheer pulse of the music, could have that effect. What he’d seen that night had been a vision of Liza Kincaid’s fantasies, an expression of deep passion and sensuality that had left him craving a taste of her. “Liza.” He leaned closer to her. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

  She set the menu down and folded her hands in her lap. “You looked very sad today when you told me about Grace.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to help kids like her discover who they are, what they can do. Every child deserves to know she has something unique and special to offer the world.”

  “I don’t know what to do for her,” he admitted. “I’m at wit’s end.”

  “I know. I also know you were telling me the truth when you said you were desperate. I couldn’t resist that.”

  Eli let his eyes drift shut. “You can’t imagine what it means to me to have someone willing to help.”

  “You haven’t had much support, have you?”

  He shook his head. “My parents are both deceased, and Mara’s parents—well, let’s just say that we’ve had a difference of opinion on what’s best for my daughter.”

  “They want custody.”

  He didn’t ask her how she knew that. “They haven’t said that—but I sense it. Mara’s mother, especially, seems to think Grace needs a woman’s influence in her life.”

  “She probably does.”

  His eyes shot open. He stared at her in disbelief. “You can’t believe—”

  She held out her hand. “Eli, I wasn’t taking sides with your mother-in-law. Children—all children—need adult role models. Grace is hurting, you know that.”

  “She was close to her mother.”

  “And because of that, I’m sure there are some things she could discuss more easily with a woman than with you. That doesn’t mean she needs to live with her grandmother. If Mara’s mother is committed to helping Grace, then she’ll understand that your daughter needs you right now.”

  Eli waged a mental war for control. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  Liza watched him with careful scrutiny. “But you’re afraid?”

  “I’m the first one to admit that I’m not a perfect father. There were times—too many of them—when my commitment to my work took precedence over my commitment to Grace. I wasn’t always there for her. After the divorce, things got worse. I wanted to avoid Mara, and in avoiding Mara, I didn’t see as much of Grace as I wanted to—as I should have. She got caught in the middle of a nasty adult situation, and that shouldn’t have happened.”

  “You know,” she said softly, “it takes an incredibly strong person to admit they’ve made a mistake.” She paused. “A person strong enough,” she added, “to help his child recover from a terrible trauma.”

  “I won’t lose her.” The resolution hung in the air between them—seemed to shimmer in the candlelight.

  Liza gave him a slight smile. “Keep feeling that way, Eli. It’s crucial—for you and Grace.”

  Slowly, he nodded. He let several seconds of silence pass before he met her gaze again. “Will you answer another question?”

  A smile touched her lips. “Sure.”

  “Your decision to have dinner with me tonight. Why?”

  Her lips twitched. “I have to eat, don’t I?”

  He decided to ignore that. “Can you tell me it had nothing to do with the fact that I connected with you when I saw you dance?”

  “I barely know you.” Her voice had dropped to a low whisper. The sudden rush of color in her face confirmed his suspicions. She’d known exactly how that dance would affect him.

  He gave her a piercing look. “Really? I know you,” he assured her. “I saw everything I needed to see when I watched you.”

  Her discomfort was palpable. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “I can’t explain it.”

  “I can.” He drew a deep breath, inhaling her scent. It was citrusy and soft—like her, piquant and sweet. “You seduced me, Liza. You know it.”

  Her sharp intake of breath spiked his blood temperature. “This isn’t fair, you know. You have the advantage.”

  “How do you figure that?” He could feel the heat in his own skin, now. “I’m the one who’s had weeks to remember what I felt like watching you move on that stage.”

  “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Why?” he pressed. “Why should you be embarrassed that you’re a deeply sensual woman? It was beautiful.” He dropped his voice a notch. “It was breathtaking.”

  Liza gripped her hands together so tightly, her fingers turned white. “I feel like you eavesdropped on my fantasies. It makes me a little uncomfortable.”

  “I wouldn’t take it back even if I could.”

  “Do you have to taunt me about it?” she asked, her voice sharp.

  “I’m not,” he assured her. “I’m trying to be honest with you. What I saw that night—” He shook his head. “I wanted that woman, Liza. I want her now.”

  Her eyes clenched shut. “This is crazy.”

  “Probably,” he concurred. “But it’s been keeping me up nights thinking about it.”

  Liza shook her head. “I am not the kind of woman who sends men into spirals of unfulfilled longing. Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Most men haven’t seen you dance,” he said. “If they had, you’d have this conversation more often.”

  She finally opened her eyes. They had turned a cloudy green—the same color, he thought, they’d turn when he made love to her. “Have you always been this blunt?” she asked him.

  “Yes. I like people who know what they want. I don’t see any reason to understate the obvious.”

  “Is that why people call you a mad scientist?”

  “Probably,” he said, without a hint of humor. “Unless I miss my guess, you’re thinking I’m a little crazy right now. Aren’t you?”

  He saw the response spring to her lips. It hovered there for a moment, but then she shook her head. “No. I—I actually have something to tell you.”

  Another point in her favor, he noted. This was a woman who would never balk at the truth—not even for the easy way out. “You do?”

  “I saw you deliver a lecture,” she said carefully. “Before today. A while ago, actually—before your research started to attract so much attention. It was a symposium for private school educators, and you were speaking on the importance of making science entertaining and applicable in the classroom.”

  He searched his memory for a minute, then nodded. “I remember that. It was one of the earlier events the administrators at my lab asked me to attend. I think
it was a trial run to see how I would do talking to an audience instead of a room full of lab rats.”

  “You were—compelling.” She held his gaze, and he adored her for it. “I decided then that I wanted you.”

  The statement set off a bomb in his gut. He blinked, fighting down a blinding desire to lean across the table and cover her firm lips with his. Dragging in a much-needed breath, he said, “You wanted me to teach at Breeland, you mean?”

  She didn’t back down. “Yes—”

  He didn’t miss the open-ended meaning of the word. “Ah,” he said.

  Liza’s eyes twinkled. “That’s sort of the way I felt about it.”

  “Are you trying to make me crazy?”

  “From what I’ve heard, you’re halfway there already.”

  “If I wasn’t, I am now.” He leaned back in his seat and dropped his gaze to the flickering candle on their table. If he looked at her a moment longer, he’d probably do something he shouldn’t. “Just so we understand exactly what we’re dealing with here, I want you to know that what I want from you is a hell of a lot more than a teacher for my daughter.”

  Liza’s breathing stilled. He felt it. “Duly noted.”

  He looked at her again. “I’m not trying to intimidate you. I just wanted you to know where we stood.”

  “I understand.”

  “So, I don’t suppose there’s any chance—”

  She shook her head. “Before you start, you should know that just because I’ve admitted I feel a certain, er, attraction to you, doesn’t mean I’m ready to jump into anything complicated. We have to spend the next three months together. Don’t you think a little caution seems prudent here?”

  “I hate caution.”

  “I’ve heard that.” Liza narrowed her gaze at him. “Doesn’t it ever bother you that people say you’re crazy or obsessive about things?”

  He sensed there was a deeper meaning to the question, something he couldn’t quite pin down, so he chose his next words carefully. “I never thought about it. I did what I did because it came naturally to me. I lived in a world where speculation and outside influences weren’t very important.” He studied his hand for a moment. “When you’re very committed to something, when you feel passionately about what you do, you invest a lot of yourself. There was a time when I lived for my work. All that obsession, well, it had an external and internal effect on me. It wasn’t unusual for me to come out of the lab after three or four days having neither slept nor eaten. I’m pretty sure I looked a little insane in those days.”