Dare to Love by user (read dune TXT) 📗

And he’d countered every single one of them with more knowledge about the subjects

than she could ever hope to amass. In fact, he’d even put a few questions to them that

neither her father nor Alex could answer.

With a sigh of relief, she relaxed. She’d underestimated Jake Dalton.

It didn’t take long for Alex and her father to figure out they weren’t going to be able

to embarrass Jake, and they finally gave up in disgust, moving off to mingle with the

politicians in attendance.

Lucy turned to Jake, about to tell him how impressed she was with his knowledge.

But she was shocked at the fierce glare on his face. His jaw was clenched and his eyes

narrowed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was angry. Very angry.

At her. Without a word, he turned and headed to the door.

Lucy hurried after him, catching up to him near the front door of the hotel.

“Jake, wait!” She grasped his sleeve and fought to catch her breath.

He stopped, turned to her.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going home, Lucy.”

“Why?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Why did you bother to bring me here tonight?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you think I was stupid?”

“No, no of course not.” Frantically she tried to recall anything she’d said that he could have misinterpreted.

“If you thought I was so moronic that I couldn’t enter into a simple discussion with

your father and that idiot he parades around as your fiancé, then you shouldn’t have asked

me here.”

Now she understood, guilt stabbing at her. “I didn’t know how much you knew about

the subject. Honestly, I was trying to spare you some embarrassment.”

“I expected your father to treat me like I was stupid. I didn’t expect you to feel the same way. I’m finished.” He turned on his heel and walked through the doors.

Stunned, Lucy could only stare after Jake’s retreating form, misery forming a knot in

her stomach. What had she done?

He wasn’t stupid. She was. She fled to the ladies room and flopped onto a chair, fighting back tears.

Jake had offered to help her out, and she had insulted him. Underestimated his intelligence in a huge way. He was right. She had thought he wouldn’t be able to hold his

own in a conversation with Alex and her father, and he’d proved her, and them, wrong.

He had a sharp wit and intelligence she hadn’t expected.

And why hadn’t she expected it? Because she had prejudged him based on his occupation. He was a construction worker, therefore he couldn’t be as smart as lawyers,

right? Blue jeans couldn’t possibly hold their own against designer suits.

She bent over and laid her head in the palm of her hands.

For someone who’d always prided herself on not being one of the snooty upper class,

she had sure shown her true colors tonight. She’d made judgments about Jake based on

his social class, and not on him as a person. In doing so, she’d proved herself the biggest

snob of all.

Jake threw the charcoal on the grill and ignited the flame, then picked up the slimy

tennis ball his Golden Retriever, Rascal, had dumped on his foot.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” he asked the dog, who sat at his feet, butt wiggling and

tail flapping furiously back and forth. “Guess not.” He threw the ball across the yard as far as he could. Rascal took off in a determined

gallop, growling and shaking his head when he pounced on his quarry.

Jake laughed at the dog’s antics and headed inside for a beer. He walked past the pile

of paperwork leering at him from the dining room table and chose to ignore it for the time

being. It was Saturday, he was hungry, had been working on the house and yard all day,

and he wanted a break. Paperwork could wait for later.

He’d thrown himself into home improvement projects since dawn, after spending a

restless night tossing and turning. A vision of curly hair and eyes the color of pale jade

haunted his dreams.

How could he have been so wrong about her? She’d seemed so unlike most of the upper class women he’d met before. Nonjudgmental based on what he did for a living.

He thought she’d enjoyed his company on their date the other night. Then it turned out

she was so deathly afraid he’d embarrass her in front of her father that she tried to steer

him away from the conversation, certain he was too stupid to know the answers to the

questions her father and Alex had asked him.

It was better to end things with her, anyway. Before he did something really moronic, like get involved. Like thinking she might care, that someone like her could

actually fall for someone like him.

Lucy Fairchild was no better than his father. Passing judgment on him, condemning

him as a failure for no good reason. He’d endured enough of that to last a lifetime.

Taking out his aggression by viciously tenderizing the steak with a wooden mallet, his annoyance ticked one notch higher at the sound of the doorbell.

Five o’clock on a Saturday. You’d think salespeople would give a working guy a break and stay away on the weekends. He wiped his hands and stomped to the door,

ready to skin alive the first person who tried to sell him something.

“What?” he said in a curt tone as he swung open the door.

Lucy blinked, taken aback by Jake’s surly greeting. It was hard enough to be standing at his door, and with a welcome like that she felt like tucking her tail between

her legs and running for her car.

“I’m…I’m sorry to bother you, Jake.”

“How did you find my house?” he asked, frowning.

“You’re listed in the telephone book.” She’d been surprised to find how far outside

the city he lived. Then again, considering the size of his house and yard, it didn’t surprise

her he had to travel half an hour east of San Francisco to afford this much land.

Small

houses with no yards went for over a quarter of a million in the city.

His brows knit together, but he didn’t speak. Almost like he couldn’t quite believe she was standing