New Year, New Man. Laura Iding

have to be realistic.”

      “What? But I am realistic. I promise you, I am.”

      “I’m only saying that on second thought, it’s a bad idea.”

      She gulped. “A bad idea...?”

      “Think about it. Where can it go, really? Have you sat down and honestly considered how you’ll feel if we spend a night together? Have you given any thought to what would happen next?”

      She blinked. “Omigod. You’re worried about the same thing Noah’s afraid of. That you’ll hurt me. That you’ll break my heart.” And then she turned her elfin face away and slid him the most endearing sideways glance. “You are worried about that, aren’t you?”

      How did she do that? Get him at a disadvantage with simple honesty and a sideways look? “I’m your friend, Luce.”

      “I know that. Of course you are.”

      “I’m your friend and I want you to have so much. I want you to have what you need. And what a lovely young woman needs is a young man as eager and hopeful and...pure at heart as she.”

      “Oh, no.” She shook a finger at him. “Oh, Dami. Really. I told you. I’m totally behind the curve on this. I need someone to teach me, to bring me up to speed. I don’t have time to be fumbling around with some guy who’s as inexperienced as I am—and as far as your hurting me, your breaking my heart... Can’t you see? I’m not like that. Not like most inexperienced girls.”

      “But you are inexperienced. And it’s wrong for me to take advantage of you.”

      “Take advantage? No, that is not what you’re doing. You would be doing me a favor. A very special kind of favor.”

      “No.”

      “Yes! You and Noah, you’re both so afraid I’m going to get my heart broken. But see, my heart was broken for most of my life. Yeah, okay, it was technically a birth defect that caused a faulty valve. But it made me different, made me feel I would never have all the things everyone else takes for granted. I always tried to put a smiling face on it, but deep down my heart was broken for all the life I would never have.”

      “But now you’re well,” he reminded her, preparing to go on and explain calmly and gently how she only had to be a little patient. She would meet someone special and nature would take it from there.

      But before he could say that, she went right on. “Exactly. I’m well. New techniques were developed and I had the surgery I needed, finally.” She put a hand to her breast. “My heart is now unbroken. And yeah, okay, I might be hurt by a man, by love gone wrong. I might suffer the way any woman suffers when she loses the guy who matters most. But even if that happened, so what? That’s what real life is. Being hurt, getting up and going on. And maybe, if you’re richly blessed, finding true happiness in time. I’m up for that. For whatever happens. Because my heart is unbroken and now I’m strong enough to see a heartache through to the happiness on the other side.”

      Damien stared at her. How could he help himself? She really was amazing. He could just sit there and listen to her chatter away, waving her pretty hands, saying things that touched him, things that made him feel glad simply to know her, to be her friend.

      But he had to do the right thing by her. He had to make her see the light. “That’s just it. It all becomes convoluted and complex between men and women when sex enters into it. It’s rarely as simple as you might want it to be—especially when it’s your first time.”

      “I see that, I do. That’s why I chose you. Because you do love me.” He must have winced, because she added quickly, “Settle down. Take a deep breath. I mean as a dear friend. You love me and I love you and you have always shown such care for me. Noah wants me to be safe. And you know what? With you, I will be. I have no doubt of that. I will be safe and treated right. And when it’s over, I swear to you, I will smile at you and wish you the best of everything and let you go.”

      Damn it to the depths of hell. What could he possibly say to that?

      Not that it mattered what he might have said, because of course Lucy was still talking. “Tell me the truth,” she demanded, biting her soft lower lip.

      “Er...which truth is that?”

      She gave him another of those sweet sideways glances. “Remember when you kissed me in my room earlier?”

      As though he could possibly forget. “What are you getting at?”

      “You...liked it, didn’t you?”

      He opened his mouth to tell her a lie—and nothing came out.

      She shook that finger at him again. “Dami, I may be inexperienced, but I saw the look on your face. I felt your arms around me. I felt...everything. I know that you liked kissing me. You liked it and that made you realize that you could make love with me after all. That you could do it and even enjoy it. And that wasn’t what you meant to do when you told me we could have the weekend together. That ruined your plan—the plan I have been totally up on right from the first—your plan to show me a nice time and send me back to America as ignorant of lovemaking as I was when I got here.”

      “Luce...”

      “Just answer the question, please.”

      “I have absolutely no idea what the question was.”

      “Did you like kissing me?”

      Now he was the one gulping like some green boy. “Didn’t you already answer that for me?”

      “I did, yeah. But I would also like to have you answer it for yourself.”

      He wanted to get up and walk out of the room. But more than that, he wanted what she kept insisting she wanted. He wanted to take off her floppy sweater, her skinny jeans and her pink canvas shoes. He wanted to see her naked body. And take her in his arms. And carry her to his bed and show her all the pleasures she was so hungry to discover.

      “Dami. Did you like kissing me?”

      “Damn you,” he said, low.

      And then she said nothing. That shocked the hell out of him. Lucy. Not saying a word. Not waving her hands around. Simply sitting there with her big sweater drooping off one silky shoulder, daring him with her eyes to open his mouth and tell her the truth.

      He never could resist a dare. “Yes, Luce. I did. I liked kissing you. I liked it very much.”

      A small pleased gasp escaped her. She clapped her hands. “Then there’s no problem. It’s all going to work out. We’ll have our weekend. We’ll see how it goes.” God, she was something extraordinarily fine. So eager and lovely, her eyes shining with anticipation at the possible pleasures to come.

      And who did he think he was fooling? He was who he was. When confronted with temptation, he inevitably found a way to surrender to it. She was right. He knew that he wanted her now, and that changed everything.

      He only prayed that when it ended, he could still be her friend.

       Chapter Five

      Five hours later Damien sat across from her at a small round corner table in his favorite café, a narrow window-fronted shop on a side street in the mostly residential ward of La Cacheron.

      “I love it here,” Lucy declared. She was looking amazing, as usual, in a short ruffled skirt, a white schoolgirl blouse, black suede boots and a bright yellow sweater. Amazing and wonderfully young, he thought, so fresh faced and glowing after staying up most of the night battling first with her brother and then with him.

      “What, exactly, do you love?” he asked, so that she would continue talking and waving her hands about.

      She put out both arms to the side, palms up. “I love the black-and-white linoleum floor, the dark wood counters,