Damn it.
I need my brain cells to work right now, and be firing on all their goddamn cylinders. I need every shred of self-possession I can wrangle. Because Gage McCabe is not only fiendishly smart, he’s also a man who could easily reduce me to a thoroughly-female mess of desire, I’m learning. My forcefield is cranked up as high as it’ll go, because he’s doing that alpha thing again. Emitting top shelf pheromones that no doubt slay debutants by the dozens. It’s his superpower, this is obvious. He’s using those turquoise eyes to hypnotize me and that big, male body to lure me in.
If I hadn’t been through the ringer once already, I might fall for it. I might accept his challenge and let him do the things I can absolutely tell are playing out in his filthy mind. His eyes wander down my body, lingering. He’s picturing me naked. Wet. Ready. He’s thinking about what he’d do with his mouth.
Help me.
The truth is, though, I have been burned. Badly. And I honestly can’t go there again. Especially without Josie.
So I crank up my forcefield one notch higher and I do the things I do best. Deflect and avoid. Look on the bright side. Pretend everything’s fine. Smooth things over with cheerful conversation. Make small talk with every Joe who walks into my bar so they feel comfortable there.
I say the first thing that pops into my mind, because breaking this intense silence and distracting him towards safer directions is the only shield I have. “The last time I was in a limo I was nine years old. I used to have to ride in one to get to school every day.”
“In New York?”
There’s something jarring about his question. “How did you know that?”
For a split second, I get the feeling he might be hiding something, but he glides past it. “I don’t. It was just a guess. There are a lot of limos there.”
“Good guess.” Maybe he googled me. No, he definitely would have googled me. I already know he’s thorough. And it isn’t that hard to find out about where people have lived these days. So I brush it off. “It was one of the perks, if you could call it that, of having a loaded real estate mogul lusting after my beautiful, desperate mother, who was more than willing to take every gift he was dumb and eager enough to give.”
“You didn’t like the guy?” His hands are tanned and strong-looking. He could break the stem of that champagne flute without even trying. His jacket is unbuttoned. His blue shirt, made of expensive cotton, is stretched across his broad chest. His belt is thick, well-worn leather, almost cowboy-ish. Under it, his stomach is washboard flat. In fact there’s not a hint of anything other than pure, hard muscle anywhere on him. His thighs, lovingly hugged by his faded jeans, are strong and athletic-looking. I can abstractly appreciate that he’s perfectly built. And my eyes, since they happen to be checking out the general area, can’t help but skim … the incredibly … huge, bold shape of his—
Sweet Jesus.
I concentrate instead on the beads of condensation dripping down the bottle of Moët. Anything but his “endowments to die for.” They really weren’t kidding. Somehow, I regain my composure. “I … I didn’t hold it against him. It wasn’t his fault he was being played.”
“Maybe he didn’t mind,” he purrs. “Maybe it was worth it to him.”
As our eyes meet, something passes between us. Some kind of unspoken comeback. Like you would be, he seems to be saying.
I feel the heat rise to my cheeks. Good Lord, what corner of my jaded mind did that morsel of self-flattery crawl out of? The champagne must be messing with my head. Not that I don’t think I’d be worth it—I would. I’m a self-sufficient, level-headed, fun-loving girl who’s a little on the scrawny side, whose hair is a little less controllable than I’d like it to be and whose bank balance leaves a lot to be desired, but other than that I’m happy enough with my looks, my morality and the space in the universe I occupy the best I can. I’m a good friend and a nice person. But the thought of Gage McCabe finding me worthy of anything at all is crazy and also would never in a million years happen.
Because I won’t let it.
I can’t.
I wouldn’t survive it twice.
“Well, even if it was worth it to him, it wore off,” I tell him.
“What happened?”
I’m not sure why he’d be hanging on every word of my story, but he seems genuinely interested. “My mother found out he was cheating on her with four of the women in her book club, so she divorced him and accepted the marriage proposal of the COO of Quaker Oats. I think she married him mainly for his country club membership. So we moved to Iowa. It was a big change from New York but at least her new husband was faithful and, more importantly, rich. Not quite in Husband Number Two’s league but she could drink gin and play bridge and sit by the pool all day, which worked just fine for her.”
I wish I wasn’t telling him this stuff, but I need to do something to fill the heavy-in-ways-I-can-barely-but-am-determined-to-handle silence.
“What about now? Is she still there?” I get that strange vibe again that he already knows the answer to his own question.
“No. Husband Number Four has a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills once owned by one of the Gabor sisters. My mother even started smoking her cigarettes through one of those hand-held plastic filters. But after a major sex scandal involving several of her husband’s top producers—and him—his movie studio has been hemorrhaging money. So I’m sure my mother is currently in the process of scouting around for her next sugar daddy.” It doesn’t exactly bring back heart-warming family memories. “What about you? Have you always lived in Chicago?”
“I grew up in Ann Arbor. I moved to Chicago after college to get my MBA and start my third company.”
Third? So he has bought and sold a few of them. “What number is my bar? Out of all the businesses you’ve built or bought?”
His smile is lazy but alert. Dazzling, you could say. If you were susceptible to things like that. “A lot. Too many to count.”
“Try. I’m curious.”
He thinks about it for a second. “Maybe forty, give or take.”
Wow. No wonder it all feels less than personal to him. “How old are you?”
He laughs at my directness. “How old do you think I am?”
I already know, from one of Josie’s online searches. “Twenty-seven.”
Still smiling. “Good guess.”
“You’re not going to ask how old I am?”
He’s unrepentant. “It made sense for me to do my research. It’s what I tend to do before I invest my money. I happen to know you turned twenty-three two weeks ago.”
“I suppose you know my birth date, star sign and favorite color too.”
“November 7th. Which I guess would make you a Scorpio, I think it is. And, if I had to guess, I’d say your favorite color is … yellow.” He gets an almost dreamy look as he says the word.
I watch his face, more fascinated that I’d like to admit. It’s not the kind of thing you can google. “You’re right.”