Page 8 of The Perfect Deception

He fol­lowed. “I just did.”

“No you didn’t. You tested the wa­ters, like what a po­lit­i­cal can­di­date does be­fore an­nounc­ing his can­di­dacy.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re in­sult­ing me,” he said, be­gin­ning to en­joy him­self.

She stopped in front of her beat up car. When she didn’t speak, he filled the si­lence. “Go out with me.”

“No.”

He stepped back. “Why not?”

“Be­cause you don’t re­ally want me to go out with you. I’m not your type.”

“How do you know what my type is?” He stilled.

She looked him up and down, like a piece of meat. “Pretty, wealthy, pop­u­lar and not too smart. Not dumb, but av­er­age.”

His face burned as he rec­og­nized the truth in her state­ment.

She laughed. “Go home, Adam. Thank you for the flow­ers.”

He watched her drive away. He wasn’t sure what just hap­pened, but it wasn’t what he’d in­tended.

The next day, she found him stand­ing out­side the li­brary when it opened.

“Don’t you have a job?” Dina asked.

He shifted from one foot to the other, an ac­tion she found en­dear­ing, even if he an­noyed her. “For the mo­ment.”

“You’d prob­a­bly have a bet­ter chance of keep­ing it if you were there, rather than here.”

He chuck­led. “Prob­a­bly.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She sighed. “Give me a minute.”

When he started to fol­low her she paused. “Wait here.” She pointed to the lobby, and waited un­til he’d set­tled him­self onto a bench be­fore en­ter­ing the em­ployee area. She de­posited her purse and sweater at her desk, waved to her boss and re­turned to the lobby. Adam was still there. Her stom­ach lurched. She shook her head. He was an an­noy­ance, like in­di­ges­tion, noth­ing more.

“Yes?” For some rea­son, she didn’t know what to do with her hands. When they started flut­ter­ing at her sides, she folded them across her mid­dle. Bet­ter to look the stern li­brar­ian than like a bird about to take flight.

He rose and shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry about the other day.”

“You al­ready said that.”

“I know, but I want to make it up to you.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is this nor­mally how you woo women? If so, does it ac­tu­ally work?”

He blew out a breath, re­mind­ing her of a race­horse. “I’m usu­ally a lot smoother than this.”

Her in­ward smile was get­ting harder and harder to hide. He re­minded her of Dorothy in the Wiz­ard of Oz, when she dis­cov­ers she’s not in Kan­sas any­more. She kept that to her­self, how­ever—he didn’t seem like the type of man who would ap­pre­ci­ate be­ing com­pared to a girl, even if that girl was a char­ac­ter in a lit­er­ary clas­sic.