Sasha made a rather inelegant noise. “It was fine.”
“Just fine?” He was stupid for asking, but his curiosity about what kind of man a woman like Sasha would fall for ate at him. It goaded him into dancing on the edge of propriety.
“Yeah, you know how—” She stopped, seeming to remember whom she was talking to. “Well, dating is hard. It’s hard to find someone you click with, and it’s rare when it happens right off the bat. Sometimes I wonder . . .”
When she trailed off, he debated whether he should say anything. On the one hand, she seemed distressed about her date just being fine. On the other hand, he was relieved. But he shouldn’t be relieved. It was not as though he could expect her to stay single. He was the one who’d made that vow. “You should give it another try. Sometimes it takes more than one date to get to know someone well enough to know if you’re interested.”
She looked up at him, her gaze sharper than he’d ever seen it. “How would you know?”
He liked it when she had her back up like this. Like, how dare he give her advice? And she was right; he had no business telling her how to live her life. She wasn’t a part of his flock. They weren’t even friends. But the way she looked at him made blood pump through his veins—it made him feel alive. And although he knew he shouldn’t even get a thrill out of talking to her, he smiled. “I wasn’t always a priest.”
His voice was lower and more suggestive than it had needed to be, and she flushed again. This was going nowhere quickly, so he decided to get to the subject at hand.
“So, did Hannah give you the lowdown?”
Sasha looked at the sheaf of papers on her lap. “Yes, she said that you need to raise twenty-five thousand dollars by the end of the summer, or the pre-K program shuts down.”
The furrow in her brow was supremely cute. If he were a different man, he wouldn’t be able to resist smoothing it out with his thumb. He cleared his throat again. “Do you need a lozenge?” she asked, reaching for her bag.
“Uh, no.” Patrick shook his head. “You’re correct about the situation. We’ve never had such a large budget shortfall before, and Jack offered your help. If you’re too busy with Hannah sick, I totally understand if you can’t spare the time.”
“Oh no.” It was Sasha’s turn to shake her head. “I did research on your program before I came over here. It’s the only one in this part of the city that offers affordable pre-K education for kids with low incomes and special needs. It needs to stay open.” She flexed her hand and hit her thigh a few times for emphasis, and any reservations he had about working with her would have to dwell in the back of his mind—exactly where he’d put the consistent ache she caused whenever they were in the same room.
She understood how important this program was to St. Bart’s— and to him. There was no way he was going to let his inconvenient and unwanted feelings for her interfere with saving the preschool.
They could absolutely keep this chaste and professional. They had to. Sasha passed him a sheet of paper with a list of options. “I took the liberty of putting together a list of possible fundraising opportunities. Hannah and I can call on some of our other clients to pitch in, because it would be great PR for them.”
“Helping out small children isn’t satisfying enough?” he asked, knowing that Sasha would give him a look that partially unspooled his intention to maintain forbearance around her from just moments ago.
“I’ll definitely remind them that God is—you know—involved,” she said with a wave of her hand that should not have made him feel anything, but most definitely did. “But they will mostly care how good helping underprivileged children will look next time they have a scandal they need to paper over. It’s a story as old as time.”
Although he didn’t like how cynical and world-weary that sounded, he knew she had a point.
“Tell me about this bake sale idea.” If he couldn’t take a bite out of Sasha, he was interested in getting something else sweet in his mouth—for the benefit of the program, of course.
“Well, it’s just a start, and I don’t think it will get us to twenty-five thousand dollars in one go.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear with one finger. “But it will give us a good place to build from.”
CHAPTER FOUR
PATRICK NEEDED TO WALK into the preschool class to see Sasha reading to a group of rapt three- and four-year-olds like he needed a hole in his head. Actually, walking into the classroom and clocking the dimples in her flushed cheeks as she giggled—giggled—at what one of the children said about Arthur the Aardvark made him wish he could step in for a quick lobotomy to drain the scramble his brains became whenever she was near.
He was ready to turn around and leave when she looked up at him. Although he couldn’t avoid her, he wanted to spend as little time with her as possible. At the very least, he needed time to prepare before seeing her. He needed to steel himself against the awareness he felt when he was around her. Her popping in and out of nowhere was a nightmare.
Right then, he could smell the clean, fresh scent of her shampoo over the baseline musty-church smell that lingered all over the campus. He felt heat rise in his skin as she turned her smile on him. Her sable eyes and wide mouth stirred up wants that he’d controlled for more than a decade.
And it hadn’t even been that much work to control feelings like this up until now. But something had switched when she came into his office with all her shiny, bright ideas for saving the pre-K program.
Before, he’d been able to relegate her to the slim part of his life he hadn’t reserved for God. Sure, he thought she was attractive. And it bothered him to see her flirt with another guy. But those thoughts were passing, and he didn’t ache from not reaching over to find out whether her hair was as silky as it looked.
He wanted to walk out. He should walk out. She’d seen him, but he could feign some pastoral emergency, and she wouldn’t ever need to know how she tempted him.
But—unlike every time he’d had to make decisions over the past decade—he didn’t do what he should. He leaned on the doorjamb and watched her as she got back to reading about Arthur and his teacher trouble. He drank in her smile and let it settle something in him that he hadn’t realized was off-kilter.
When she was done reading to the children, Sasha stood up and smoothed the front of her electric-blue shift dress. He racked his brain for any time that she hadn’t been totally put together around him. He couldn’t think of one. It made him want to see her completely undone in a way that would totally destroy both of their lives.
As she walked toward him, he braced himself. For what, he wasn’t sure. “What are you doing here?” That came out more harshly than he’d intended, and Sasha started. He liked startling her more than he should. It made him feel as though he weren’t alone in being off-balance. It was selfish and wrong, but he couldn’t help being those things around this woman.