Breathless

Chapter 6: Captivating - March 31

He returned a few moments later with two glasses of ice water. As he set one down before her and the other in front of the empty seat across from her, he asked her a question. But she was distracted for a moment by that water glass. It had been so long since anyone had joined her for a meal. That full glass was an oddity. She felt like a stranger to such a comforting sight. A tear invaded her eye as she continued to stare at it.

Blaze gazed down at her in consternation. What was she looking at? He'd seen a wave of sorrow pass over her countenance as she seemed to stare at the glass that he'd just set on the table across from her. But why would such a sight make a woman weep? He had noticed her eyes beginning to gleam as she seemed to stare off into space.

He wasn't sure how to handle her tears, so he simply repeated his question of a moment before. "Would you like some coffee? Or perhaps some iced tea?"

This time his voice broke into her reverie. Startled, she glanced up. "Oh! No, thank you. Water is fine."

He nodded. "I'll be back with your dinner in a few minutes."

As he turned towards the kitchen, she queried, "Don't you mean our dinner?"

"Yes, that is precisely what I mean," he murmured.

He was rewarded with a huge smile. It suddenly lit up her entire countenance. He nearly staggered backward in astonishment at the beauty she'd become. She was definitely hiding her light under a bushel most of the time. Keeping that beautiful grin under wraps.

"You have the most captivating smile," he breathed.

Completely dumbfounded, she lifted her eyes to meet his. As their gazes kissed, she found herself oddly breathless.

Hmm. Such an odd sensation.

That hadn't happened to her since...ever. She could not remember a single instance in which any guy – not even Owen – had made her breathless.

Captivating?

No man had ever called her captivating.

But as Blaze walked away, she realized that statement wasn't true anymore.

—

He returned ten minutes later with two plates of food. He set one before her then placed the other in front of his seat. Which he was suddenly occupying. As he sat down across from her, she glanced up into his eyes. And lost herself for a moment. Or two.

How had she never noticed this man's eyes in high school? She must have been blind. Yes. She'd been blinded by Owen back then. But a little more than two years ago, he had ripped the veil off of her eyes and revealed his true nature to her. Over two years too late.

She had married him the summer after she finished college. She'd been nearly twenty-three then. She'd spent a fairly blissful year married to him. Before she'd begun to suspect that he was sleeping with another woman.

The clues had been subtle at first. A missed dinner here. A late night at the office there. Then they'd begun to increase in intensity. An odd fragrance clinging to his shirt. Her awaking to an empty bed in the middle of the night. Only to overhear her husband whispering softly into his phone in another room.

However, the evidence had become irrefutable when she'd found the first text message. And the second. Still, she had tried to ignore it. But she had no longer been able to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to it the day she'd come home early from work to find him in their bed. With another woman. It still made her sick to remember it. She'd discovered them together two weeks before Christmas. That had been the loneliest Christmas of her whole existence.