“I was trying to ask you out, not make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” she said, though her teeth were beginning to hurt from how tightly wound she was. “I just don’t want to have dinner with you.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he said, with another one-sided smile. But he didn’t stand up. He was still giving her that assessing look.
“Right, well,” she said, standing herself. “I expect you have a lot to do.”
He came to his feet slowly. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said he was trying to avoid startling her the way he had in his office. Damn, why had she cringed away from him? She never showed weakness; it was a habit she’d gotten very good at in four years.
She waited for him to move to the door, but he just stood there, taking up too much space again. “That’s a wicked cool accent you’ve got, by the way,” he said, and she could have sworn he broadened his own. “Can you sharpen knives with it?” He pronounced it shahpen.
“No, just cut down overblown egos,” she flashed back. Oh, crap. “Sorry,” she said automatically, then bit her lip. She shouldn’t be apologizing to him. Her friends always told her she said sorry too much. But she made one last heroic effort to keep her snark under control.
“That’s all right,” he said, and there was the face that riled her up so much in the magazines. The man who assumed every woman in the vicinity would give a limb to be seen with him. “See, even when you’re insulting me, your accent still makes it sound like a compliment.”
Ellen snapped in a way she hadn’t since college, since before Edward. Her fists clenched beside her, and her cheeks burned. Hang the account. Hang Lucía for being late this morning. Hang this man and all men like him. “You just can’t stop, can you? What is it, some kind of knee-jerk reaction for you? See woman, ask woman out?”
“You consider yourself just any woman?” he said, still smiling, still unflappable.
“I’m not the kind of woman you’d be interested in.” Oh yeah, this account was flying right out of that window. And the problem was, telling him what she really thought of him filled her up with a righteous anger that felt good. Penny would be thrilled; she was always saying Ellen was too buttoned up.
“How do you know what—”
“Because you make no secret of it!” She could feel the flush in her cheeks, knew she’d regret it later, but, like him, she just couldn’t stop. “Don’t you date women based on how much exposure they’ll give you?”
“How much exposure they give me,” he said evenly, folding his arms. He seemed calm, but the look he sent her showed that she was finally getting somewhere. “So,” he continued, “you know all about me based on a few column inches on a website?”
Damn. He had her there. But, “No. And you don’t know anything about me. If you did, you’d know I have absolutely no interest in your paltry idea of a relationship.” She could feel herself shaking a little. It was time to get him out of there. “I have to get back to work,” she said, letting off one last shot. “You know, work? It’s what your employees do while you’re off getting your picture taken.”
That did the trick. All traces of amusement were gone. His dark eyes were boring into her so hard she caught her breath. “Yeah, I know work,” he said. “You mean, work like trying to figure out who the hell’s setting fire to my buildings? Surprisingly, that is taking up a lot of my time.”
Oh, shit.
She remembered now. She’d hardly looked at the news for days, with the planning for the Queen’s Ball taking up all her attention. She’d done her research on the company last week. A few days ago she’d heard something about a fire in Chicago but hadn’t connected the name of the company to her meeting with Lucía or with the laughing, shallow man in the tabloids. “Right, of course,” she stammered, and broke the eye contact. Now she really had killed the account. See, this was why she shouldn’t ever let herself lose it. “I... I didn’t...”
“It’s fine,” he said curtly.
She was a complete harpy. When she was younger, she’d had a temper. But having a temper meant losing control. And now look what had happened, the first time she’d let out the demon in years. And for what? Just some playboy she never had to see again. No matter how much she wanted to run her fingers over the pulse in his neck.
He turned around and opened the door to the office himself. Ellen had to follow him out to the stairs. Seeing his back, the creases in his suit jacket, reminded her of that morning. The exhaustion made sense now; the worry, the pain she’d seen in his eyes.
At the top of the stairs he turned around. “You don’t have to show me out,” he said, and his face had cleared. God, he smelled good. Ridiculous. She could smell cigarettes on him. She hated people who smoked. She couldn’t possibly want to lean in.
He didn’t hold out his hand to shake. “Goodbye, Ellen.”
A warmth that she didn’t recognize bloomed in her chest when he said her name.
