Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
He looked like a bad boy. All she wanted to do was drag him inside and kiss him senseless before they tore off their clothes and made love right there in the foyer.
Heat rushed to her cheeks, and it took every ounce of control to act cool, to hide any evidence of her thoughts. Except the flush on her cheeks she couldn’t seem to will away.
Lord. This was going to be the hardest two weeks of her life. Especially since the person she might have to fight the most was herself.
“How did you know where I live?” Closing the door behind him, she spoke mildly, not wanting to sound arrogant or bitchy, just curious.
He strolled after her into the living room, shrugging out of his jacket. “I saw the great spread they did on your place in that architectural magazine. Your flat is remarkable.”
“Thank you.” She shouldn’t feel so pleased—it had shades of always trying to please him when she was twenty-one. After taking his jacket from him, she threw it over the back of the sofa. Not in the closet, where it might stay the night, but out here, easy to grab on the way out.
“I’ve got a place just around the corner, so I know Pacific Heights, and I recognized the exterior of your building.” He took two more steps into the room, not crowding her, just filling the space with his presence. Turning to her, he smiled. “It’s elegant and beautiful, just like you.”
She willed away another flush that threatened to creep into her cheeks, but her legs felt buttery again, just the way they had in the elevator when he’d smiled at her. So she ignored the compliment. To do anything else might break her resolve.
Yet she couldn’t help another telltale flutter of her unmanageable heart. To know that they lived and worked so close. Dane had never said anything to her. But why would he? He knew nothing of her history with Ransom. But it was as if their business and personal paths had paralleled, and all this time, she hadn’t even known it. She could have seen him in her favorite market. She could have passed him as she walked through Lafayette Park.
He pointed to the champagne flute she’d left on the coffee table. “I see you still love your champagne.”
She smiled despite herself. “Yes. But I can afford something a bit better than the Two Buck Chuck we used to drink.” Just as quickly as the words were out, she wanted to slap herself for dredging up their past when this was supposed to be business only. To hide the misstep, she asked, “Would you like one?” He’d always loved champagne, too.
“That would be great,” he said with a grin that might have held a note of triumph.
As she poured him a glass in the kitchen, she reflected that they’d progressed past the way she’d stomped into his office. He’d made her a latte, and now he was in her living room while she made him a cocktail. It didn’t seem possible. She couldn’t have imagined this even in her wildest fantasies.
As she handed him the flute, Ransom took the edge off her thoughts by asking, “There’s something I don’t understand about the situation. You agreed that unless it was for something pretty damned important, I was the last person you’d come to. But you didn’t explain why. I’d like to know.”
Was he talking about why she’d come to his office, what her desperate business need actually was? Or was he referring to the past? To the way he’d left her, that he’d simply taken a night flight and she’d never heard from him again.
She answered the first question, the most important one. Because after unloading all her feelings on Gabby, she was over the past. “I told you, the catering company totally sucked.”
But he persisted. “You’ve got a ton of catering companies in the Bay Area. I’m not even a catering company in the same sense. So why me?” His use of the word me said it all. He was talking about far more than her catering issues.
But she wouldn’t let him stray from the topic. “I tried everyone else. No one could do it. I got someone for the next two weeks, but that’s it.”
He stared her down, and she knew he wasn’t going to let her get away with that answer.
“But I’m the last person.” He stressed the word.
Ava, however, was good at deflection in a way she hadn’t been fifteen years ago. “My brothers suggested you. And I realized they were right. I didn’t have another choice. You were it—the only one.”
* * *
There was a harshness to her tone, and he knew the reason was far more than her brothers, more than her failed caterer. He wanted her to say it out loud. “But you wouldn’t have come to me otherwise. And we both know it. So tell me why it was so hard.”