Blind Attraction (21 page)

The corners of her mouth tilted upwards in a cat-like smile as she looked at him, “Of course not; I’m like five inches taller than her and blond; she’s so not a blond
; well, not like I am.”

“But….” His mind whirled with confusion;
with whom had he fallen in love if not this angel standing before him? “Who are you?”

“Does it matter?” the woman purred, playing with the front of his shirt in a brash style, looking up at him through her lashes.
She must have seen something in his face and her expression sobered as she stepped away from him, awkwardly letting her hands fall to her sides. “The damage is done.”

No, this wasn’t right;
Victoria was the golden angel, not this coquettish girl standing before him. He frowned, not able to take it in. What did Victoria look like? Why didn’t Victoria tell him what she looked like? No, she had said she was blond and then let him see her with his hands; he had assumed…. “Where is she?”

The blond not-
Victoria shrugged, glancing over her delicate shoulders. A small, knowing light gleamed in her eyes and though she wasn’t Victoria, he still thought she was stunning, even more stunning than the brief glimpse he had had of her all of those weeks ago. “She was just here….”

He started to take a step to leave but she grabbed his arm, stopping him from going anywhere. Holding out her other hand, she smiled
compassionately, “I’m Taylor Danner.”

Absently, he shook her hand; there was too much information to process and with his brain already overloaded with the return of his vision, he wasn’t sure what was happening. Looking beyond Taylor, he saw a red
-headed female glaring at him, her nostrils flaring as she looked ready to tear him apart with her hazel eyes. She had to be Marnie because she was definitely not Victoria. Where was Victoria? Turning his head slightly, he glimpsed a dark blond head fleeing the store; that had to be Victoria. “Excuse me.”

“No problem,” Taylor said almost sympathetically,
stepping to the side to let him pass. “Good luck, though; she’s a little sensitive when her world has been turned upside down.”

Confused, James glanced at the girl he had been picturing all this time. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever encountered, even more stunning than the women he usually dated, but there was no
zing
, no connection. The thing that made Victoria so special was absent.

He was going to have to go after her, try to explain. But what was there to explain? It was a simple mistake;
the Victoria he knew would forgive him and then laugh about his stupidity. The Victoria he knew… God, what if Victoria turned out to be hideously ugly, like all of her features were there but they weren’t quite in the right place? As much as he wanted to think he was above such petty concerns, he wasn’t. He wished he could say he would love her if she was a troll but he was a mere human and he knew his faults; he was not proud about having to admit such weakness.

There was beauty in flaws; there was character in imperfections, like her appendectomy scar.

Swallowing hard, he staggered past the angry red-headed woman, stumbled out of the store, unprepared for any course of action. He wasn’t going to go after Victoria right at that moment; he didn’t even know what she looked like and would probably walk right past her. Numb and bewildered, he was going to drive back home and try to figure out what to do.

Maybe he should call his doctor and schedule an appointment to make sure his brain still functioned because right now, it felt iffy.

Leaning against the wall in the alley behind her shop, Victoria clasped her hand to her chest, unable to stop her heart from leaking out. She knew James was too good to be true; she
knew
it. But that didn’t stop her from falling head-over-ass in love with him. When she had looked up from helping a customer and saw him standing there she was so excited because she knew that his sight had returned. Even when he walked purposefully across the room to where Taylor stood, Victoria didn’t mind. It wasn’t until he took Taylor into his arms and kissed her with such naked passion that Victoria began to have her doubts.

Because she had told him she was blond it was only natural for him to assume Taylor was her and of course he would swoop her into his arms and kiss her with all of the love and passion in his body. But when he didn’t immediately realize his mistake, when he deepened the kiss,
the sick feeling twisting her stomach turned into a full blown rancid dread. Despite the intimacies they had shared he couldn’t tell her kisses apart from Taylor’s.

He must have
been under the wrong impression that she – that Victoria – was Taylor; he hadn’t even hesitated when he saw Taylor, almost as if… as if he had seen her before. His words about having a photographic memory ran through her head …. He knew about Taylor; he had wanted Taylor all along and he had used his blindness as a ploy to get with her. Only it hadn’t been Taylor he met first.

All of her doubts and insecurities returned with a vengeance:
of course a man like James wouldn’t want an unsophisticated girl like her despite the blasted
zing
. Now what was she going to do? She fell in love with someone who wanted Taylor; just like every other guy she knew. Only much, much worse since she gave him everything: heart, body, soul.

It hurt to breathe and she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Tears streamed down her face and all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole in the ground and die. How could the world change so completely in
a single heartbeat? It hardly seemed possible, but as she fell to the ground because her legs no longer had any strength, she knew that it could happen.

Yet
no matter how much she felt like the world was ending, she had things that needed to be done; she still had a store to run.

No, she’d wait a few more minutes; she couldn’t bear running into James and having him look at her with disgust because she failed to live up to his expectations. Or worse; look at her and not see her
at all because he simply didn’t know who she was. Tilting her head back, she willed her tears to stop coming but all that managed to do was let the tears drip into her ears.

Squee
zing her eyes shut didn’t help either; her lashes just matted together from the mascara she had decided to wear. With an impotent growl, she yanked off her heels and flung them against the opposite wall, feeling just the slightest ease in her suffering when the damn things hit. But then she didn’t have another pair of shoes to fling and the pain returned with renewed vigor, bringing with it gut-wrenching agony; he hadn’t wanted her. Painful, heart breaking sobs escaped as she buried her head in her hands.

She wasn’t sure how long she cried before she became aware of another presence looming over her. For a fraction of a second she hoped that James had chased after her.

“Oh, sweetie,” Taylor’s voice broke through the storm raging in her heart. Victoria felt Taylor slide down the wall and wrap a slender, graceful arm around her shoulders. The realization that James wasn’t coming for her sent a sharp dagger through her bleeding chest. “Hush, now; it’s going to be all right.”

“That’s what you say now,”
Victoria sobbed. “I just wish it wouldn’t because then I could go on feeling miserable and maybe my heart wouldjust die and get it over with. Then I could live my life without suffering this awful pain.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he looked just as shocked as you probably feel,” she offered, rubbing her hand up and down
Victoria’s arm, trying to make her feel better but failing miserably.

“It doesn’t,”
Victoria murmured, offering a watery smile. Swiping at her tears with the back of her hand, she sniffed, “Do you think you could do me a favor?”

“Sure, sweetie,” Taylor said, swiping a strand of
honey blond hair from Victoria’s damp face.

“Can you unlock the backdoor from the inside?” she asked, pushing herself to her feet. Using the wall to hold herself up, she said, “I’m a mess and I would prefer not to have to face anyone looking like this.”

“It’s not so bad,” Taylor gallantly lied, her eyes darting to the left as she gnawed on her full, bottom lip.

Victoria
held up her hand, showing the black mascara marks; “I know how bad it is; I am not a pretty crier, especially when I’m wearing makeup.”

“You’re right,” Taylor smiled
tenderly, brushing the back of her thighs off. “You’re a mess; I’ll go open that door for you.”

“Thanks,
Tay,” Victoria said, as tears continued to leak out of her eyes. Was she ever going to stop crying? She should have remained skeptical; hadn’t Taylor told her that James always dated gorgeous model-perfect women? It was all there had she bothered to see past her own infatuation with the man.

Maybe
Victoria was taking this monumental blunder too seriously; she had long since stopped giving a damn what other people thought about her. Maybe he would still be attracted to her despite her lack of platinum blond hair and statuesque height. James hadn’t been too overly interested in discovering what she looked like, so she had just assumed that looks weren’t that important. But why would it matter since he apparently knew what she looked like all along? Maybe that
zing
wasn’t such a good indicator to begin with.

No, she was going to calm down and figure this out after the store closed. If he stopped by later for their date, she would see what he had to say. And if he was still reeling from this shock and he didn’t show up, well, she would just have to go from there. They shared something, damn it; it couldn’t be over simply because she didn’t look like he thought she would.

Feeling a little better, she knew she had to get through the rest of the day. Her door opened and she walked in, offering Taylor a tentative smile. “I’ll be down in a few.”

“Not a problem, we’ve got it covered and if all else fails I can call in reinforcements,” Taylor assured her as she went back to the store front and
Victoria headed up the stairs to her apartment.

She walked into her living room and sighed; her bag from the weekend was still sitting out. Picking it up, she
grimaced; it reminded her of James, of their weekend. It wasn’t over, damn it; he could decide that he liked petite, regular girls instead of statuesque blond goddesses. And if he couldn’t, well then, he was obviously the wrong man for her.

But why did it have to hurt so much? She was a fool to believe in love at first sight, especially when the man in question couldn’t see. Stupid
zing
; if it weren’t for that, she doubted anything would have progressed further than a date or two. She should have employed more caution – the way she did in every other relationship she had ever attempted. Even if that
zing
was unique, had she slowed down, maybe it wouldn’t be such a catastrophe. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that it wasn’t as bad as all that.

Staring at her image in her bathroom mirror, she had to laugh, though it came out more of a sob. Mascara streaked down her cheeks, her eyes were red and swollen, and her face was all blotchy. No one could accuse her of crying pretty.

Turning on the faucets, she splashed cold water onto her face, grateful for the cooling relief. She was going to have to pull herself together, at least enough to get through the next couple of hours. Then she could change into sweats, curl up with a bowl of ice cream and wallow in misery for a few hours before dusting herself off and coming up with a plan. Despite the small kernel of hope, she knew that he wasn’t going to show up later.

She laughed wryly; how much worse would it have been if she was in his arms when he regained his sight? Then she would have been forced to see the horror on his face when he realized his huge mistake. No, this way was much better; she never had to see him look at her with revulsion.

Whoa, slow down, Vi; she told herself. He might give a plain girl a chance; after all, there was that
zing
, and the camaraderie between them wasn’t something that could be easily faked. There was more to her than a lack of Taylor’s sophistication and magnificence; and despite the short amount of time she and James knew each other, there was just something there. She didn’t fall in love with his attractive face; she fell in love with him.