Riley nodded, but didn’t say anything for a few seconds as if he needed to give her words time to sink in and make sense. He took his finger from under her chin. “I do like you for you, but what does moving to New York have to do with you needing to learn about sex?”
How did she explain her big dream without sounding dumb? It all made sense in her head. In New York, she didn’t have to be boring old Nell Evans, diner waitress and granddaughter of the stingiest woman in Mississippi. Nor did she have to be the daughter of the easiest woman in Mississippi—a woman who didn’t even know who of all the men she’d slept with, had been Nell’s father. In New York, Nell could be the woman she wanted to be. The one she knew in her heart she was destined to be. She just didn’t want to go there with her backwoods country ways showing like a ripped hem on her skirt. “I can’t be there and be a virgin.”
His dark eyes widened. “You’re still a virgin?” His voice held an almost reverent tone.
She could feel a tingly heat infuse her cheeks. “Yes.”
“How did that happen?” He ran both his hands over his dark hair. “Or how didn’t it happen?”
Sex hadn’t happened because Nell wasn’t exactly the prettiest or most flirtatious girl in town. Nor was she exactly thin. And it didn’t help that her grandmother knew everyone in town and had had the ability to intimidate a marble statue into staying away from Nell. “Well, no one really ever asked me out, that is until I inherited millions of dollars.”
“You sound a little bitter.”
Yes, she was bitter. She’d spent her whole life in Wayloo and not one man had ever been interested until she became the town’s version of a cash cow. Who wouldn’t be bitter?
Since gossip about the will had spread, she’d been getting phone calls and had been sent flowers from every man in town who had aspirations toward wealth. Including the men who’d laughed at her in high school.
“You’re twenty-five years old, Nell,” he continued. “A fully-grown woman.”
She rolled her eyes. He hadn’t been forced to live in the maximum-security prison her grandmother had called a house, where her every move was accounted for. She had stayed with her grandmother out of guilt and some twisted attempt to win the old woman’s love.
Being a good girl had always earned her the only praise her grandmother had thought to issue. “I know how old I am. And trust me, I know about my lack of a social life.” She had to get out of his house and find herself a large rock to hide under and hope he’d never ever mention her being here. Or what she’d asked of him. Suddenly, the embarrassment was too much for her.
He crossed his arms over his powerful chest and rocked back on his heels. “I did.”
“You did what?”
“Ask you out.” He held up three long fingers. “Three times.”
How could he have been serious? No one paid her any mind. All the boys in the area had only wanted to date the pretty girls and she’d never measured up. Too shy and self-conscious, she’d always felt everyone was laughing at her behind her back. “You weren’t serious.”
She saw no deception in the depths of his velvet-brown eyes, but couldn’t believe for a second he thought she was worthy of a date, much less three of them. “We were ten years old.” She held out her arms. “You couldn’t have been serious.” Nell rubbed her forehead. “Were you?”
“Yes, I was.” He flashed her a wicked grin, showing his perfect white teeth. “When I was ten, I was a serious kinda guy.”
This conversation had taken a turn toward the ridiculous. He had to be pulling her leg. “Riley, that doesn’t count.”
His grin widened. “I asked you to the Sadie Hawkins dance when you were in eleventh grade.”
“You were playing a joke on me.” The year before, Avery Prescott, the mayor’s son, had asked her to the Winter Cotillion. She’d been excited that a boy her grandmother deemed good enough had actually sought her out and asked her to the formal dance. She’d been given permission to accept, but when the night finally arrived she’d been left standing in her baby-pink formal gown on the porch waiting for a date who had never intended to show up.
He shook his head. “I was serious as a heart attack.”
“I guess I was kind of gun-shy. I didn’t believe you.” She still remembered being devastated, and at school the next Monday, she’d discovered herself the victim of a cruel joke that had left all of her classmates laughing at her. From that time on, she’d hidden herself in her books, worked at the diner and taken care of her grandmother, who grew more delicate every year as her heart grew weaker. She decided she simply wasn’t the type of girl men wanted to make time for or go to bed with.
“I also asked you out for dinner about seven months after Chloe and I got divorced and again you turned me down.”
“You have dinner at the diner every night.” Of course she was always working in a restaurant full of other people waiting for their food and didn’t have the kind of time she’d like to spend talking to him. “Why didn’t I have a clue?” she asked that question more for herself than him.
“I’m guessing I wasn’t clear enough.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. “Why are you asking me to teach you about sex?”
She felt the blush start beneath the collar of her uniform and spread upward again. “All the single women in town you’ve been running around with say you’re the best at…you know…doing it.” Not that they’d actually said so directly to her. She’d learned a long time ago that most of the women in Wayloo thought she was invisible and talked freely in front of her when they came to the diner for lunch. But she wisely kept that information to herself. She tended to live vicariously through gossip.
His eyebrows shot up. “They do?”
She nodded, moving closer to him. “I figured you know the tricks. After all, you lived in Chicago for five years. Plus, I don’t have to worry about any of the mushy love junk.”
“Mushy love junk?”
Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have said it exactly that way. It did sound a bit rude and unfeeling. Riley wasn’t acting the way she’d envisioned in her mind. She’d thought he’d be…well…more flattered. “I know you’re not going to fall in love with me and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to fall in love with you.” Almost sure. Deep inside, she’d always had some odd feeling for Riley, but had never really taken it out and examined it. He was just another guy her grandmother had disapproved of, so why waste time on thinking about what-ifs.
“You don’t think you could love me?” he asked.
A woman like her would be a fool even to think about setting her sights on such a man as handsome and as eligible as Riley Martin. Since his divorce, the local gossips whispered that he’d been through almost all the single women in the tri-county area. Sex was in his bag of tricks. “It would be silly, since I’m leaving town as soon as I sell the diner and settle all my business. That’s why you’re so perfect. That and the fact that all the women say you’re very good at…well…you know.” She just couldn’t quite say the word sex. She imagined her grandmother sitting on a cloud looking down at her and being horrified at what Nell wanted.
Pride crossed his face. He reminded her of one of her grandmother’s prize roosters strutting through