The Lady and the Lion Read Online Free PDF Page B

and emotion rather than knowledge or understanding.
    "Good morning," he said, his deep voice the way it had been that first morning, a bit guarded. "I'm Keith Donovan."
    There was no need at all to add explanations, she thought. Names and faces might be strange, but they knew each other. "Erin Prentice," she said, her own voice a little husky.
    He half nodded. "Will you have breakfast with me, Erin Prentice?"
    Fearless of him or not, she should have at least hesitated, but it never crossed her mind to do so. "Yes, I will."
    He smiled, the curve of his mouth softening his hard face into one that was surprisingly charming. "I hoped you would. The terrace restaurant here serves the best food. Shall we?" He didn't offer to take her hand or arm, but merely gestured slightly.
    Suddenly conscious of her windblown hair, baggy sweatpants, and overlarge T-shirt, Erin said, "I should change—"
    "You must know you're beautiful," he said.
    She felt a faint shock, not because of what he said but of how he said it. He sounded matter of fact, if not indifferent. Taking little notice of her own appearance when she was alone, Erin had nonetheless been taught all her life to show her best face to the world, and since it had been drummed into her that her face and smile were her best—if not only—assets, this man's dispassionate acknowledgment of her looks was as rare as it was welcome.
    She closed the distance between them slowly, at a loss to know how she could respond to his statement. He didn't appear to expect a response, however, and they walked across the lobby to the terrace restaurant in silence.
    It wasn't until they were seated on the terrace, once more in the sunshine, that he spoke again. "Did I offend you? I didn't mean to."
    Erin shook her head a bit helplessly. "How could you have offended me?"
    His smile dawned again. "I might have been implying that you were vain and had to know how beautiful you are. I wasn't, though. It's just that I imagine you've been hearing compliments on your looks all your life."
    She was granted a few moments to pull herself together after that curiously impassive statement, since the waiter came to pour coffee and take their orders. Grateful that he wasn't the kind of man who automatically ordered food for his companion, she gave the waiter her order and then watched Keith as he did the same.
    When they were alone again, she said lightly, "It's only a matter of good genes."
    "Yes, I know."
    Erin felt a spurt of annoyance, and had to laugh at herself. To his questioning look, she said wryly, "I've always hated being taken at face value—but I seem to have gotten used to it."
    "Feeling insulted because I agreed you had nothing to do with how you look?"
    "Yes. Absurd, isn't it?"
    His strangely vivid gaze rested on her face, but was still shuttered and impossible for her to read.
    "No, not if you've been taught to believe how you look is the biggest part of who you are."
    It occurred to Erin then that Keith Donovan would never tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. He would not make pretty speeches, pay charming compliments, or say anything he didn't honestly mean. She was accustomed to dealing with all kinds of people, but in the social and diplomatic circles in which she'd come of age, Keith's brand of candor was something she had never encountered.
    She felt herself smiling. "I think that's been one of my problems. It doesn't seem to be one of yours. Are you impervious to attractive women, Keith?" She thought she saw something in his eyes flare when she said his name, but there was no other change of expression on his faintly smiling face.
    "To call you attractive," he said in that dispassionate tone, which robbed his words of compliment, "is like calling the ocean wet; the word doesn't begin to describe the subject. Am I impervious to beauty? No. Even a marble statue would turn his head when you walked by. Would I have asked you to breakfast if you'd been ordinarily pretty or even plain—