because with her-as with no one before her-he actually wanted to be witty and charming and interesting. It was precisely because he couldn't be any of those things that he should be urging her to leave, to join the family that was waiting so impatiently to spend the rest of this Christmas day with her.
He was generally a selfish person, but not even he could feel right about keeping her from that loving family when he couldn't even seem to carry on a conversation with her.
Seeming to sense that he was at a conversational loss, Lucy spoke up. He should have expected her to say something completely unexpected, and she did. “Let's play a game.”
“A game?” he repeated somewhat blankly. “Like what?”
“Twenty questions. Only I'm making a few new rules.”
He felt decidedly wary when he asked, “What new rules?”
“I can ask twenty questions about you, and you can ask twenty questions about me. And no matter what you're asked, you have to answer honestly.”
“And the point of this would be…?”
“It's a very efficient way of getting to know each other. That's one of our goals, isn't it? Exploring the attraction between us? Assessing the potential for more?”
She made it sound as logical and prosaic as if they were considering a financial investment. Must be the math professor in her. Not that he wanted her to start waxing poetic on him, of course. He had already decided that he should be convincing her how incompatible they would be in a long-term relationship-his fault, of course, since there was certainly nothing lacking in Lucy.
Maybe a few blunt answers to her questions would make the futility of any romantic expectations clear to her. Labeling it a game seemed an odd way to determine their fate, but he had learned not to be overly surprised by anything Lucy suggested.
Chapter Nine
“What question do you want to ask me?” Banner said, injecting just enough resignation in his tone to let Lucy know what he really thought about this exercise-which should be her first clue to their incompatibility, he mused.
His reluctance to participate didn't seem to bother her in the least. She reached for one of the cookies he had set out to accompany their tea when she replied. “Question one. Hmm. What's your birthday?”
Hardly a question of deep importance, he thought, which meant he could answer without weighing his words, “April 3. I'll be thirty-one.”
“That's two answers for one question,” she observed cheerily. “I should get extra points.”
“I didn't know we were awarding points.”
“I'll fill you in on that part later. Your turn to ask a question.”
The woman wasn't quite normal, which, Banner had to admit, if only to himself, was one of her charms. “I can't think of anything to ask. You go ahead.”
She sighed heavily. “Banner, you have to play the game correctly. Surely you can think of something to ask me.”
He shrugged. “Okay. What's your birthday?”
“July 25. I'm a Leo. Since you're an Aries, that makes us a very interesting combination.”
He cleared his throat, feeling the need to derail that train of thought before it got a good start. “Yeah, whatever. I've never been particularly interested in astrology. You don't really believe in that stuff, do you?”
“No cheating, dude. It's my turn to ask a question.”
He couldn't help chuckling at her wording. “So it is.”
She lowered her teacup and picked up her half-eaten cookie. “I like it when you laugh. You don't do it often enough.”
“That wasn't a question, it was an observation. Doesn't count.” But he liked that she liked it when he laughed. Which only demonstrated how much she messed with his mind, he thought in exasperation.
She seemed delighted that he was participating in her game, however reluctantly. “Okay, question two. What's your favorite color?”
He didn't know how she figured she was going to get to know him with such superficial questions-nor did he know how he was going to convince her of how different they were if all she asked were trivialities-but he gave her an answer, anyway. “Blue, I guess.”
“Most men say blue. Did you know that?”
“Is that another question?”
“No, just an observation.” She swallowed the last of her cookie and reached for another. “What's your next question?”
“I don't know-what's your favorite color?”
She frowned at him. “You aren't giving this enough thought. You're simply asking the same questions I am.”
“So maybe I really want to know your favorite color. What is it?”
“You know that pinky-purple color that a clear blue sky turns to just before sunset? That's my favorite color.”
Of course it was. He certainly shouldn't have expected her to give a simple, predictable answer like red or green or yellow.
She propped her elbows on the table and studied him. “What sort of music do you like?”
Question three, he thought. Only seventeen more to go. “Alan Jackson's in my CD player right now. Last week I was in the mood for Celtic tunes.”
“Ah. An eclectic listener. So am I-though I suppose I listen to classical recordings more than anything else.”
That was no surprise to him, either. Hadn't he read somewhere that there was a strong connection between mathematics and Mozart? “I didn't ask you what sort of music you liked.”
She chuckled. “Consider that a freebie. You still have eighteen questions.”
Oddly enough, he felt much more relaxed now than he had earlier. Had that been her intention with the whimsical game? He decided it probably had been her plan, since her questions weren't exactly thought provoking.
He tried to think of another question for her. There were a few things he wouldn't mind knowing about her, but most of them seemed too personal to ask. So he asked, instead, “What's your favorite snack food?”
“That's a good one,” she said with a nod of approval. “You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite foods. Have you ever had a deep-fried Twinkie?”
“I can't say that I have. That's your favorite snack?”
“No, but I had one at the state fair last year. I'm a fiend for chocolate-covered malted milk balls. I love the way they dissolve in your mouth when the chocolate is gone.”
Banner cleared his throat and shifted a bit in his chair. Something about the sensuous look on her face aroused him all over again. “I see.”
“Aren't you going to tell me your favorite snack?”
“You haven't asked,” he reminded her.
The way her full lower lip protruded when she pouted was enough to raise his blood pressure by a few dozen points. He dragged his gaze away from her mouth and reached for a cookie as she said, “Okay, if you have to be picky about it, I'll make it a formal question. What's your favorite snack food?”
“Moon pies.”
“Chocolate or banana?”
His left eyebrow rose. “That's question number five?”
“No. It's four-A.”
His mouth twitched with a wanna-be smile. “I'm not sure that's in the rules.”
“I make the rules,” she reminded him airily. “Chocolate or banana?”
