“Why?”
She could hear the smirk in his voice, but she refused to back down.
“I might apply to work for the CIA. I want to include upside-down reading as one of my skills.”
“I see.” He made a coughing sound that was suspiciously similar to a laugh.
If she didn’t redirect the conversation soon, the heat radiating off her body would fry him to a crisp.
“What are you doing in Chicago?” she asked.
“I’m going to a conference, too. Maybe the same one as you.”
“The Biomedical Engineering Convention?” Her gaze strayed to his face again, and this time his dimples came out. They were Liam’s dimples. No doubt. They hadn’t changed since she’d memorized them sixteen years ago by staring at his high school yearbook picture for hours on end.
He looks exactly like Liam, but how can that be? Liam is paralyzed below the waist. But the guy sitting beside me now looks like an athlete. Could his spine have regenerated?
“Yes, the Biomed Convention.”
“You’re in the biomedical field?” She tried to catch a surreptitious look at his legs, but there wasn’t much to see. He had on jeans, and his pullover was still covering his lap. She had no way of detecting whether his legs functioned. But she was increasingly certain this man was Liam Bennett, the guy she’d had a crush on since her freshman year of high school.
The man who hates my guts.
“I own a company that makes advanced prosthetics.”
She was shocked to think of Liam owning a business, a successful one that afforded him the luxury of flying first class. Her own seat was thanks to her doctoral advisor, who’d surprised her with the upgrade. Her professor had been quite pleased when her research had garnered national attention and snagged them an invitation to speak at the conference.
“What’s your company’s name?” She stuck her elbow on the seat rest between them and propped her chin, still using her hand to shield her face. She had to keep her identity a secret for the next four hours.
“It’s called Advanced Engineering Prosthetics; AEP for short. We have a partnership with Limitless.”
“Limitless? They funded the research for my doctoral program!”
She was so excited she forgot to keep her face hidden. His head angled to one side. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”
“I’m sure we haven’t. I’d never forget meeting a guy like you...” She let her words die, wishing she could do the same.
“A guy like me? What do you mean, exactly?” A suspicious furrow formed between his brows.
Her pulse fluttered like a bird. No, like a bird with a gun to its head. And a cat sitting in front of it, licking its lips.
“I mean, you’re very memorable.” She couldn’t think with her pulse pounding inside her head. “Because you have very impressive... uhm...”
She’d blabbered herself into a dead end. Anything she said to complete the sentence would get her into trouble. She certainly couldn’t mention how huge his muscles were. And she didn’t dare mention him having paraplegia, since she only knew that fact through personal knowledge of the accident.
A brilliant response came to her in the nick of time. “Very impressive fingers.”
“My fingers are impressive?”
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so brilliant.
“Absolutely. I’ve never seen anyone whose fingers move as fast as yours do. And so precisely! When you were typing that email with the flight attendant breathing down your neck, that was amazing.” She motioned with her hands. “Zippidy, zippidy, zippidy. Wish I could do that. I might get my thesis finished early.”
“I had no idea my typing skills stirred such emotion.” Merriment danced in his voice.
His dimples winked into view again, and her heart sank. She’d once longed for him to smile at her like that. How many hours had she daydreamed that her older brother’s best friend would suddenly notice her and ask her out, then profess his love?
But that was before I ruined his life.
“By the way, I’m Liam Bennett.”
His confirmation put a lump in her throat the size of a potato. He stuck out his hand, and hers trembled on the way to shake it. His touch shot lightning bolts up her arm.
Must be from guilt.
“I’m Carly S—” She turned her last name into a hacking cough, her mind racing to come up with a replacement for Simpson. “Carly” was safe, as Liam would’ve known her as “Lottie,” her old nickname, and no one ever used her full name, Carlotta. But a last name? She coughed a few more times, garnering some stares. People probably thought she was contagious. “Carly Simon.”
He blinked. “Carly Simon? Like the singer?”
“There’s a singer named Carly Simon?”
His brows knitted together and went up.
“You have the same name as a famous seventies singing star, and no one’s ever mentioned it before?”
It was fortunate that Carly had no plans to become an attorney, as she’d clearly proven she possessed no ability to concoct a plausible lie.
“Someone might’ve said something before. I can’t remember.”
