Page 30 of The Money Man
He waved back the driver and held the car door for Alice himself. As she swung her legs in, he noticed the sexy heels she wore and his arousal surged. Now he regretted his decision to eat dinner first.
However, once in the car, Alice sat upright on her side of the seat, an expanse of leather between them, while she made small talk. Maybe he was wrong about her response to him. He frowned as he stared at the back of the driver’s head. He wasn’t usually this confused by a woman.
Not to mention that he had too much work to do to be this preoccupied with a sexual attraction. His partners were concerned about his handling of the Argon account, and he hated to admit that they might be right. The Small Business Initiative was his pet project, but it was pulling him away from the business that generated the profits. Leland and Tully could deal with Alice’s issue just as capably—if not more so—as he could. It had become a computer-hacking problem, not a numbers manipulation.
Yet he didn’t want to hand Alice over to his partners. He felt personally responsible for the difficulties BalanceTrakR might choose to create for her. Leland would not protect her from that as vigorously as Derek would.
And why?
Because Leland didn’t want to strip her clothes off and run his hands over her naked skin.
Derek refused to let go of Alice’s project because he didn’t want to let go of Alice.
So he justified the time he spent with her by saying it was for BalanceTrakR. Why shouldn’t he just ask her out like he did other women? In fact, it could be argued that he was crossing the line on a professional relationship.
He faced the truth. He had the disquieting feeling that Alice might turn him down if he asked her out for a social dinner, but she would never say no to a business meeting.
The parking lot at Nick’s Diner was half-empty, but the blazing colors of neon gave it a festive air, as always. Alice couldn’t remember anything she had said during the ride from her house because after her “ravenous” comment, she’d been debating how provocative she should be. Just her one statement had lit a blaze in Derek’s face, making his gray eyes darken and his lips seem fuller and more sensual as they’d curved into a smoky, seductive smile.
She’d been correct about his interest in her, and he’d gotten her return message. Now she was getting cold feet. Was she crazy to sleep with a man who might ruin her for all other men when he left?
As Derek once again offered his arm in that old-fashioned way that made her think of her Regency duke fantasies, she decided that it would be worth the pain. Especially when she felt the solid muscle under the fine navy wool of his suit jacket.
Once they had settled in a booth identical to the one they’d sat in before and placed their order, Alice got the business part of the meeting going. “So, how did KRG decide to engage my invaluable services?”
“You went to high school with Joe Passapera, one of our consultants with a specialty in finance.” Derek leaned back against the red vinyl banquette. “He was two years ahead of you.”
“Good old Joe. I remember him fondly,” Alice joked, although she had no recollection of having ever crossed paths with him. “I think we went to prom together.”
Derek chuckled, a rich, deep sound that she wanted to bathe in. “Was he a good dancer?”
“He was fine on the fast dances but he just wanted to sway back and forth during the slow ones.”
“What teenage boy doesn’t? Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” His eyes were smoky with innuendo.
She nearly asked Derek if he’d like to dance right there in the middle of the diner’s black-and-white-tile floor because her desire was getting more and more horizontal. “Did Joe and I keep in touch after high school?” she asked instead.
Derek looked a little disappointed at her refusal to flirt with him. “He’s going to email you his CV and a current photo so you can figure that out.”
She searched her memory again before she shook her head. “I’m surprised we didn’t overlap in math club, but I don’t remember Joe at all.” She took a deep breath. “So I guess you saw the pattern in my childhood activities.”
“I didn’t look at your background.” She felt a slash of disappointment at his lack of interest until he continued. “That was confidential information between you and HR.”
So he had respected her privacy. But she’d brought it up so she said, “It isn’t a secret.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled to the email with the listing of dates, schools, organizations, and activities before handing him her phone.
His fingertips brushed hers and a spark of awareness jumped between them. She could tell he felt it by the way that his attention locked on her before he turned it to the small screen. As he scanned the collection of ballet classes, tennis lessons, camps, and schools, the waitress arrived and slid their plates onto the table with practiced efficiency. The aroma of grease, beef, and fries made Alice salivate.
Derek murmured a distracted thank-you as he scanned her phone. When the waitress left, he glanced up. “You mentioned that your family’s financial status, er, changed often.”
“Very politely said. My stepfather has never believed in working nine to five. Even worse, he believes he’s smarter than everyone else so he always had a can’t-lose deal based on information from an inside source. They were generally disastrous.” Like the one that had wiped out her college fund.
“But every now and then he succeeded and you got the private camp and the figure skating lessons.”
“And then got yanked out of them. It was humiliating so I found the most dependable profession I could.”
“And now you need the numbers to always add up.”
He got it, as she’d known he would. That was what made him so dangerous. Not his physical perfection or the sexual pull between them, but the understanding.
