“Saturday I keep free. I usually meet up with friends.”
“Great. Eight o’clock Saturday it is. If you don’t want to meet me in a restaurant, you can cook. I’ll bring the champagne.” He was comfortable and relaxed, whereas she felt as if she was floundering in the deep end of a large swimming pool.
“If you want to eat dinner with me you can join me at Italian cooking class.”
He shook his head regretfully. “Italian cooking is Wednesday, and Wednesday is poker night.”
“You play poker? Of course you do.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Ruthless killer instinct combined with the ability to mask your emotions. I bet you’re good.”
“I’m good.” There was a devil in his eyes. “Want to find out how good?”
Her mouth dried. If he was flirting, she was going to ignore it. “I don’t play poker.”
His smile widened but he let it go. “It’s mostly an excuse to catch up with friends and drink alcoholic substances. I’m not that competitive.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.”
He laughed. “I should take you along. You could read their minds and send me clues.”
“I’m a psychologist, not a clairvoyant.”
“So with this packed schedule of yours, when do you date?”
“I don’t.” Damn, she shouldn’t have said that. Not only did she sound like a loser, but a man like him would take it as a challenge. “I mean right now, I don’t date. I’m focusing on my work. I love my life exactly the way it is.”
“Now I understand why you do so much exercise.”
“Because I like keeping fit.”
“No, it’s because you’re not getting hot sex. So you have to find another way of relieving pent-up frustration and releasing endorphins.”
Molly gasped. “I am not frustrated! We don’t all walk around thinking about sex the whole time.” Until she’d met him. Since meeting him that was pretty much what she did.
“Not the whole time, but a lot of the time. And you must know that. You’re a psychologist. We cloak ourselves in the trappings of civility because that’s what society expects, but underneath we’re all driven by the same primal urges. Want to know what those are?” He leaned closer and she saw the devil gleam in his eyes. “To procreate and win bigger than the other guy.”
“This is why we are never having dinner.”
“We’re not having dinner because you’re too busy. And you’re too busy because you’ve substituted spin class and salsa for sex.”
“I would rather take a spin class than have sex with you.”
“Shouldn’t you have sex with me before you make that decision?” His smile widened and his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Maybe you’re turning down the night of your life, Molly-with-no-second-name.”
“I have a last name. I just don’t choose to share it with you.”
“One meal.” His voice was wicked temptation. “And if you’re bored, I’ll never bother you again.”
Bored? No woman would ever be bored with him. But they’d be a lot of other things. Most of all they’d be vulnerable. There was no male weapon more lethal than dangerous charm. And this guy had it in spades. “No thanks.”
He gave her a long, searching look. “So who made you scared, Molly? Who made you choose spin class and salsa over sex?”
She was so used to hiding herself, it shook her that he’d seen through her veneer.
“I need to go. Thanks for the tea.” She tossed the cup in the waste bin, grabbed Valentine and ran back through the park, taking a shortcut that led to her apartment.
He was right of course.
She was scared.
If you fell, next time you were more careful where you stepped. And she’d fallen hard.
“Daniel! Thank goodness you’re back. I need to talk to you about the summer party and you need to sign these.” Marsha, his assistant, met him at the door with a file full of papers and a list in her hand. “And Elisa Sutton is in your office.”
“Elisa? Happy birthday, by the way.”
“Happy would be a day at a spa. Instead, I’m here.” She pushed the file into his hands. “I hope you appreciate my loyalty.”
“I do, which is why a ridiculously extravagant bouquet of flowers is currently on its way to you. Now tell me about Elisa.”
“She turned up half an hour ago, desperate to talk to you.” Marsha lowered her voice. “I’ve sent out for more tissues. Last time she used a box and a half.”
“You’d probably cry a box and a half if you were married to her husband.”
“He’s a box and a half kind of guy. You’re the only man I know who is good with crying women. Why are you so patient?”
He’d had plenty of experience.
A vision of his mother flashed into his mind and he pushed it away.
He wasn’t a man to wallow in the past. He dealt with it and moved on. So why the hell had that image sneaked into his mind now?
The answer was Molly.
Molly, with her searching questions about his childhood.
She’d dug around in a wound and now it ached.
That, he thought grimly, was what happened when you went deeper than the superficial. There was a lot to be said for not getting to know a person better.
Annoyed with himself for allowing the situation to intrude on his day, he focused on work. “Divorce is always emotional. Handling it is my job.”
“It’s Max Carter’s job, too, but he just abandoned a client who was crying a river in his office. He said he was giving her time to ‘compose’ herself. If I didn’t know for a fact that the guy is a brilliant lawyer, I probably wouldn’t believe it. Are you mad that I let Mrs. Sutton into your office without an appointment? You can fire me if you like.”
“The day you leave is the day I leave. We’ll walk out of here together, clutching our dead houseplants.”
“Hey, I water those houseplants.”
“Then you need to stop watering them. They’re dying.”
“Maybe the clients have been crying into them. Or maybe they’re depressed. If I had to listen to all the sad stories you’re told, I’d be depressed, too.” Marsha had started working for him when her youngest daughter had left for college. The same day her divorce had become final. The divorce he’d handled.
Her maturity, humor and air of quiet calm made her invaluable.
“Do you know why Elisa is here?”
“No.” Marsha glanced toward the closed door and lowered her voice. “Last week she was in here crying over that lazy, cheating, no-good husband of hers, but today she’s smiling. Do you think she’s killed him and hidden the body? Should I refer her to one of our colleagues in criminal law?”
Daniel gave a flicker of a smile. “Let’s hold the decision on that.”
“Maybe she’s here to tell you she’s taken a lover. That might be the best revenge.”
“Maybe,