Sweet Imperfection Read Free

subject by bringing up something else.”
    Her laughter seemed to shift his mood back to playful. “All right then, Emma Chen-Delvaux. Where are you staying this weekend?”
    She narrowed her eyes, but there didn’t seem to be an ulterior motive to the question. “Ashworth 10. For old time’s sake. You?”
    “Ashworth 9. I didn’t make it to the five-year reunion, so I figured, ‘What the hell. I’ll stay in my old dorm.’”
    “Have you tried the bed yet?” She was having a terrible time not flirting with him.
    “No, why?” He sounded serious, but his eyes danced.
    “They’re not as comfortable as I remember them.”
    “That’s because our bones are ten years older. I brought a mattress pad with me, anticipating such a need.”
    “You did not.”
    “I did. You’ll have to come see if you don’t believe me.”
    The challenge lay between them, but Emma sidestepped it. “How did you get it here? On the train?”
    He didn’t seem to mind that she hadn’t answered his implicit invitation. “No,” he scoffed. “I rented a car.”
    “I wish I’d known you were coming this weekend, and that we live like three blocks from one another. We could have carpooled.”
    “Well, that’s what reunions are for. To reunite old friends.”
    “Cheers,” she said warmly, lifting her glass of water.
     
    Nate raised his glass to meet Emma’s and suddenly froze. What was he doing? He’d practically invited her up to his room. Not the tone he should be injecting into their relationship. Emma had always been his friend. Sure, he might have lost track of her for a while, hadn’t actually set eyes on her in a decade, but their easy camaraderie and conversation made it seem as if they’d been sharing warm beer on the green during Spring Fling only yesterday.
    Of course, he’d always been interested in her back then, too. Who wouldn’t be? She was undeniably attractive with a petite, pert body, exquisite clear skin, thick, straight black hair inherited from her Chinese-American father, and incongruous but captivating violet irises in wide-set eyes passed down from her white, European mother, who had been born and raised in France. He remembered a story she’d told him one day over lunch. She’d gone to see Beauty and the Beast with some girls from a new school she’d transferred to when her father got his job at Stanford. None of the girls had believed her when she’d told them she was half-French because she didn’t look anything like Belle. They’d taunted her and called her a liar, and she’d gone home in tears. Her father had given her a lecture on race and politics that had gone over her head, and her mother had—to her extreme embarrassment—called each of the girls’ mothers at home and chewed them out in the most florid French accent she could muster. Emma had told Nate she’d learned her parents would defend her, but she had to be the one who was comfortable with her identity. “The girls all apologized for doubting me, but we never became friends. The worst part was that my mom banished Disney princesses from the house!” She’d laughed, and her candidness had blown him away.
    That story was just one of things burned into Nate’s memory files of Emma Chen-Delvaux, including her sexy, girl-next-door looks and the way she fearlessly met his flirtation mode head-on. Nothing he said fazed her. He supposed that was why they’d been able to be friends, despite always having significant others. They could tease each other with no consequences. Neither would consider the other actually interested.
    Except now they weren’t with anyone else. She was single, unfathomably. He was still hibernating, hoping when he came out of his cave, the wounds of his brief marriage would be healed over, and he’d be able to offer up a whole man to the next woman who came along, instead of the hollow shell he’d been when he and Alison had called it quits.
    He was beginning to suspect the healing process might be