“Yeah,” she said. “When we’re through with all the stages, you’ll admit you’re not in love with Kyla.”
VJ’s wholesomeness pricked at his sense of honor. How fair was it to play this game when he had no illusions about his relationship with Kyla?
Love and marriage had little to do with each other and neither had anything to do with him. This desert mirage had about a point zero-zero-one percent chance of convincing him differently.
“So, what if I admitted that right now?”
VJ off took her sunglasses and stared at him openly. “Clearly you didn’t understand the rules. I’m supposed to go through the stages and then you admit it. Why in the world would you marry Kyla if you’re not in love with her?”
“I never said I was marrying her. I said I was announcing our engagement. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Oh, pardon me for assuming an engagement leads to a wedding.” She made a disgusted little noise. “That’s your problem in a nutshell. You think these things are all separate and they’re not. You need romance instruction worse than anyone I’ve ever met.”
He couldn’t stop the grin. “Then educate me.”
“I’m not sure it’ll help. You might be too far gone.” She licked her lips and faced forward. “Are you going to marry her or not?”
“It’s...” Complicated. When had that become the norm for his life? “Look, I know I said to ask instead of assuming, but this is the sole exception. I’m announcing our engagement, and she’s well aware that I’m not in love with her. Leave it at that, okay?”
“Okay.” She drawled out the syllables, overloading them with meaning.
Great. She’d taken him at his word and created all sorts of assumptions. Well, if he hadn’t wanted that, he should have kept his mouth shut. But he hadn’t. She deserved as much honesty as he could give her, and now it was time to drop it.
“So, what’s stage one?”
For a beat, she didn’t respond, like she’d changed her mind about educating him.
“Attraction.” Her legs slid together and crossed, slowly, snagging his attention from the road. “A sense of awareness that wasn’t there a minute ago. Maybe you’ve known each other for years and one day, something happens. Pop! You notice how nice her eyes are or how sexy she looks in that shirt. Maybe you’re strangers, but eyes meet across a smoky room at a party and it’s a lightning bolt to the spine.”
Or an orange pickup pulls off the road and out spills a provocative sunflower with coconut-scented hair. “Hormones. Like I said.”
“If you want to be clinical.” She frowned and the shadow of a road sign threw her into murkiness, then rushed away. “Reality is much more complex. Why do your hormones react to this woman and not that woman? For example.”
Interesting point. She wasn’t spouting text from the pages of a bodice-ripper. Some analysis had gone into this. “Maybe that woman is a pain in the butt.”
“We’re still in the attraction stage. You wouldn’t know anything about the woman’s personality in a relationship at this point. That’s the next stage. Once you recognize some primal, fundamental reaction to her, then comes stage two.”
“Which is?”
“Attention.”
Subtly, she shifted closer, and below his sleeve, a firm breast brushed his biceps. A breast only covered by a thin shirt and definitely not encased in a bra.
“You pay attention to her,” she said. “Not like giving her lame flowers from Piggly Wiggly. But paying attention to stuff she likes. Music. Books she’s read. You notice little variations in the color of her skin. You give her a nickname. Remember details, like the things she says.” Her breast nudged his arm muscle with little licks of heat. “Stage one and two. You’re hot for her, and you pay attention.”
Hot. Yeah. His lungs were on fire with the effort it took not to gulp oxygen. He was swamped in the sensation of a rough cotton T-shirt against his arm, the only barrier between his skin and hers, and it was a miracle the zipper on his jeans hadn’t busted a few teeth.
“How many stages are there?” he asked, his voice involuntarily husky.
“Six,” she said and her voice had dipped a couple of notches, too, causing her answer to sound like sex. Or maybe that was due to his hormone-laced senses. “Romance isn’t simple.”
What was simple? Not this blazing stage one between them, which had to be leaving scorch marks on her, too, as perceptive as she was. Besides, she might have been serious enough with a guy to be talking marriage, but that didn’t make her experienced.