Who Wants to Marry a Heartthrob? by Stephanie Doyle

Author:Stephanie Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

6

“YOU’RE NOT STIRRING that right.”

Bridget shrugged off the criticism with the ease of someone who’d been told a number of times that she was doing something the wrong way and continued to stir her way. She’d bought pasta, meatballs and sauce from her favorite Italian shop in Brooklyn for dinner. Richard had supplied the wine and the bread.

Leaving the pasta alone for a second she used a spoon to sample the sauce that was simmering in another pot on the stove. She’d told Anthony to go light on the garlic and he’d looked at her as if she’d grown a new head. Anthony, he’d told her referring to himself always in the third person, doesn’t do light-on-the-garlic in anything.

Oh, well, she thought. Good thing they had the mouthwash.

Leaning on the counter next to the stove, a glass of wine perched casually in his hand, Richard peered over her shoulder. “The spaghetti has been cooking too long. It’s going to be mushy.”

She forked out a single piece and tasted it. Still crunchy. “It’s linguine and it needs a few more minutes.”

Richard sipped his merlot. “I don’t like it mushy.”

“Hello, this is me you’re talking to. I know you don’t like it mushy. Why are you so fidgety?”

“I’m not fidgety,” he insisted.

He was fidgety. And he was picky. Picky all by itself didn’t mean too much in regard to Richard. He was normally picky about things. But fidgety and picky combined only meant one thing. He was nervous.

He acted this way before he had to do a big presentation for an important account. He would always start those days picking at her over every minute detail and then he’d start to fidget. He’d shove his hands in pockets, then take them out and cross them over his arms. He’d spend minutes fussing with his hair, or tapping pencils on the desk, anything to keep his hands moving.

And if he got really nervous, he’d start pacing. Bridget decided that she wouldn’t get nervous herself about tonight unless he started pacing.

The first few times he had exhibited his anxious traits in front of her had happened right after she’d begun working with him. It had almost been grounds for quitting. Or firing, considering that on her second day of working for him, right before a meeting, she had told him to take the stick out of his ass and swallow a chill pill instead.

Amazingly, he hadn’t fired her after that episode. And over the course of the next few months, she had begun to see that the criticism wasn’t intentional. It was merely his way of deflecting all of his insecurities so he would be confident during the meeting. And the fidgeting was just a by-product of all of his nervous energies. Once she accepted that, it had been easy for her to deal with the minor panic attacks when they occurred.

Only tonight was different. Tonight she was having her own panic attack, which made her decidedly less sensitive to his. In addition to that, his nervousness didn’t make sense at all.

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