Yours to Savor Read Online Free PDF

radiated from his powerful gaze. He reminded her unnervingly of a wolf that’d zeroed in on his prey. “I wanted to—” he cleared his throat, “—to apologize.”
    “Oh.” Sandra looked away, pretended ignorance. “About what?”
    “You know. What I said to you.”
    “When?” If he could make her feel uncertain about herself with just a glance, she owed it to herself to try to knock him off-balance, too.
    “When?” he snarled. “When do you think? Outside the coffee shop, when you went stomping away.”
    Sandra hid a smile, taking secret pleasure in his irritation. He did not look like a man who was used to apologizing. This entire interaction seemed foreign to him. “Why did you say it, then?” she asked innocently.
    “I didn’t expect you to take it so close to heart,” he growled, the words grating out of him. He sounded so focused, now, so determined, that Sandra almost believed him.
    Sandra kept her eyes off him. “It’s my fault,” she corrected. “I was the one who ruined your shirt—”
    “Forget the shirt!”
    The outburst startled her. Sandra looked up, shocked by the fervor in his words. The man looked frustrated and… agitated ? His hands clenched into fists, his jaw tightened, and an angry vein pulsed on his neck. “Can’t you see I’m trying to apologize to you?”
    “No need,” Sandra said quickly, trying to diffuse the situation. He was making her feel very uncomfortable, glaring down like that. “You’re forgiven.” She cleared her throat. “Now, if you don’t mind, some of us have things to do to get ready for the day.” She buried her head in her papers again.
    “Dammit, you’re not listening!” he snarled.
    She looked up at him again.
    “Look,” he continued, “there’s no excuse for the way I acted. I—”
    “Sure there is. I ruined your shirt. I should be apologizing to you.”
    “And you did—dammit! Can’t you just let me finish?”
    She put her papers down and looked at him without saying a word. Clearly this was important to him, and clearly he wouldn’t leave her alone until he got whatever it was off his chest. Well, the sooner he got it over with, the better.
    The man growled. When he wasn’t smirking, Sandra realized, he had an alarming tendency to do that.
    “What I’m trying to say—what you’re making infinitely harder for me to do—is that I want to make it up to you.”
    Sandra raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
    “Let me take you out.”
    It wasn’t a question. It was a command.
    Sandra blinked. That had come completely out of the blue! He was asking her out? Here ? Now ?
    “No.” She shook her head. “I’m sure you have plenty to do without me getting in the way.”
    “I want to.” He leaned in, directing his stunning eyes at her. She watched as the tension in him melted, replaced by… that look.
    “Sorry, but we have a do-not-date-the-patients policy here,” Sandra made up on the spot. She couldn’t think of anything better to say with him looking at her like that. “I have to comply by it. Anyway—”
    “Not a date. An hour. Listen—” he said, making his voice as soothing as an autumn breeze rippling through a flowing dress, “—I don’t want you getting the wrong impression. I know what you think of me. I can see it in your eyes. Give me an hour, later tonight, to change that.”
    Well , Sandra thought, he certainly is persistent. And annoyingly good to look at. Still, she shook her head. “I’m busy—”
    “What’s this I hear?” Doctor Baker asked, emerging from the hall at the worst possible moment. “Did somebody mention a date?”
    “No,” Sandra responded firmly. “Your new patient here was just leaving.”
    “Not without getting an answer from you.”
    “The answer’s still no!”
    Doctor Baker gave both Sandra and the man a bemused look. “Sandra, dear, you’ve worked for me for two years and I haven’t seen you with a man once.”
    Heat flooded Sandra’s cheeks.
    “Two