She looked up sharply at the smooth timbre of his voice. He wasn’t mocking her, was he? His gaze was dark and direct and didn’t waver as she met it with her own startled stare. Nope. Not mocking. It looked like seduction, if anything.
Whoa. Gabe Dawson was putting the moves on her? There must be snowballs flying every which way in Hell at this very moment.
A frisson of delight rippled through her before memory caught up with it. Memory of fear and weakness and helplessness at the hands of a man not so very different from this one. A rich, privileged, handsome man whom women fawned over and society adored.
She stared down at her fingers, twined so tightly in her lap, they ached. A waiter came in to take their orders, but she hadn’t even seen a menu. Gabe murmured that they would have whatever was being served at the chef’s table tonight.
The waiter left and Gabe sighed. “Will you please talk to me? What are you thinking? I can’t read you.”
“I was thinking about how society loves you.”
That earned her a disbelieving grunt. “Hardly. I have committed not one, but two, unforgivable sins according to your people.”
Her people? Hah! They were her mother and father’s people, but not hers. She’d tried to break away from high society. To be a normal person. A kindergarten teacher, for goodness’ sake. But her father kept forcing her to come back. Insisting on political appearances. And dates with the sons of Dallas’s richest and most influential families. It had been nothing short of mortifying.
Gabe continued grimly, “Not only did I have the gall to get rich and not stay on my own side of the social tracks, but then I’ve repeatedly declined to marry some vacuous, shallow bitch and make her one of the richest women in Dallas.”
Amused in spite of herself, Willa tsked. “Scandalous, Mr. Dawson.”
He grinned and all but knocked her off her chair with that megawatt smile. His sex appeal had only magnified over the years, and it had been off the charts a decade ago. If only she were more experienced. More savvy about men. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so out of her league around him. It wasn’t that their twelve-year age difference was so great, but she’d lived a sheltered, awkward social life. And he… Well, he hadn’t.
The waiter brought their first course, and she looked over it at Gabe. “So what have you been up to with your life besides getting filthy rich and shunning the good ladies of Vengeance, Texas?”
“Work, mostly. Exploring for oil has taken me to every corner of the planet. For some reason, oil always seems to come from boiling-hot or freezing-cold places.”
“Favorite place you’ve visited?”
“While looking for oil? Malaysia. While just traveling? Gotta go with Paris.”
“Paris, huh? I didn’t peg you for a romantic.”
That earned her a cynical look. “My ex-wife stripped out what little romance there was in my soul a long time ago.”
“Is there any news about her? A ransom note from kidnappers or something?”
Gabe’s facial muscles tightened in stress. “No. Nothing.”
He clearly cared deeply about his former wife. Willa’s natural empathy bubbled up in spite of her reservations about this man, and she reached across the table to lay her hand on top of his. “I’m sorry.” But then shocking heat scalded her palm and she jerked her hand away.
“What have you been up to since you grew up?” he asked carefully.
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t a snot-nosed kid anymore, thank you very much. “I graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in elementary education. I’m a kindergarten teacher.”
“Kindergarten? So you have a death wish?”
She laughed. “Five-year-olds are actually pretty great as long as you draw clear boundaries for them and stick to them. I love my job.”
“Are you on a leave of absence from teaching right now?”
She sighed. “I am. And the school year was just getting started, too. But there was so much to do to arrange the funeral, and I’m the executor of his estate. I have no idea how I’m going to wade through all the business matters my father left behind. It’s a nightmare.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”
It was nice of him to offer, but she didn’t trust the man any farther than she could throw him. Still, he’d rescued her from that mob of reporters and was feeding her in rather spectacular fashion. He hadn’t once behaved like a slimeball toward her. She supposed she should cut him a little slack.
“After Melinda, you never found another woman who turned your head?” she asked.
“Circling back to my love life, are we?” he murmured, amused. “Nope. I guess she ruined me for any other woman.”
The one time Willa had met Professor Melinda Grayson, the woman had intimidated her so badly, Willa had barely been able to form coherent sentences. So, he liked his women aggressive, huh? Count her out, then.
“Actually, no,” Gabe commented. “Aggressive isn’t my style in women.”
Oh, Lord. Had she asked that question aloud? She would just crawl under the table and hide now. Her cheeks fiery hot, she searched frantically for a distraction. “The garden is beautiful.”
Gabe looked outside, and she followed suit. Twilight had descended over the rose garden, softening its hues to muted tones of maroon and mauve.
“Shall I open the doors?” he murmured.
She nodded, and he rose gracefully to throw open the double doors. Even wearing jeans and a casual sport jacket, he cut an elegant figure. He must be, what? Forty? The man was in shockingly great shape for his age. His coat bulged with muscle and his face was smooth and youthful. He was going to be one of those incredibly annoying men who looked fantastic at sixty and beyond.
The sound of crickets chirping swirled into the room on the perfume of roses and the day’s spent warmth. The light of the twin candles on their table began to take over as night fell around them. The waiter brought the main course—spit-roasted quail, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, that literally melted in Willa’s mouth. The wine was smooth, her companion smoother, and the combination relaxed her in spite of herself.
For his part, Gabe spent an inordinate amount of time studying her over his meal. Finally, she couldn’t resist asking, “Is something wrong?”
“No. It’s just strange to see the little girl all grown up. It’s like I’ve walked into a time warp where you aged overnight.”
“I got old when you weren’t looking, huh?”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “You are emphatically not old. You’re stunning. That’s what’s got me staring at you. The promise of this kind of beauty was always there, but it’s impressive to see it in full bloom. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”
“Uhh, thank you,” she mumbled, flummoxed. He thought she was pretty? Well, then.
“The boys must have been all over you in high school and college,” he commented. “Any of them still around?”
Was he actually fishing to find out if she had a boyfriend? Shock made her choke on a sip of water. She eventually recovered enough to croak, “I’m the only kid in my high school who went up to Lover’s Point to be alone.”
He laughed lightly, disbelievingly even, at her quip. Little did he know how dull her love life had truly been.
She’d taken one ecstatic bite of the most incredibly delicious crèe brûulée she’d ever experienced when Gabe’s cell phone rang, shattering the quiet between them. She raised her eyebrows at the sappy country