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She believed him. Funny, powerful and very easy to look at. Especially now, when he stared at her so intently. She sensed she had his full attention—which was both thrilling and a little scary.
“But then they underestimate you, too,” he added.
“You know this how?”
“Because I did. I assumed human-rights law when you said you were working internationally.”
“It’s a guy thing,” she said. “The assumption that women will go for emotion rather than business.”
“You get that a lot.” He wasn’t asking a question.
“Yes, but I don’t mind. I use it. My career is very important to me. The first few years in a big law firm can be tough. I want to get ahead, but I was raised to do the right thing. So I’ll take the advantage of being underestimated and run with it.”
“Ruthless?” he asked.
“I flirt with ruthless, but we’ve never actually been a couple.”
Their gazes locked. Until that moment, Julie had been enjoying her drink and the company, but suddenly tension crackled around them. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She’d thought Todd would be prissy and he’d thought she would be an idiot. Instead she found herself rethinking her plan of no involvements until after her second year at the law firm ended. While she didn’t have a lot of spare time, with the right incentive, she could make an exception.
She liked that he was smart and cynical and still paid attention to what his aunt Ruth had to say. She liked his smile and the interest flickering in his dark eyes.
For the first time in a really long time, she felt a warmth between her thighs. Good to know that part of her wasn’t completely dead.
“Tell me about the women in your life,” she said.
He’d been drinking and nearly choked. “I didn’t bring pictures.”
“That’s all right. A brief overview is plenty. I’ll pass on the résumés this time.”
“You’re so generous.” He set down his glass. “There were the twins…”
She smiled. “You don’t do twins and I don’t scare that easily.”
“All right. No one serious at the moment.” He frowned. “Make that no one at the moment. A difficult breakup last year. No ex-wives, no ex-fiancées. You?”
“One ex-fiancé from my last year of law school. No one now.”
“What happened to the fool?”
Julie might not be on the dating circuit, but she knew when to sidestep a topic. There was no point in getting into her sad little story. “Things didn’t work out.”
The waiter appeared and asked if they had any questions about the menu.
“As that would have required us to look at them,” Todd said as he grinned at her, “not yet. But we’ll work on it.”
Julie waited until they were alone and said, “Why bother with a menu? You’re going to order steak, close to rare, and a salad. Not because you want one, but because if you don’t eat a vegetable, people will think you weren’t raised right.”
He raised his left eyebrow. “You’ll want the steak, but there’s the whole ‘women don’t eat on dates’ thing, so you’ll get fish, which you don’t really like.” He picked up his glass. “I take that back. You do like fish—but only in a beer batter, deep fried, with fries on the side.”
“I like tuna,” she said primly.
“Something from a can doesn’t count.”
She laughed. “All right, you win. I’ll get the steak and even eat it, but you can’t tell.”
“Fair enough. And I’ll order the damn salad.” He leaned toward her. His dark gaze locked on hers. “I expected to be bored.”
“Me, too. I also thought I’d feel morally and intellectually superior.”
He grinned. “I’m comfortable with the moral superiority.”
“But I can’t be smarter?”
“I’m a pretty smart guy.”
She shifted in her seat as the temperature in the room seemed to climb about sixteen degrees.
She reached for her drink, but before she could pick it up, he captured her hand in his. His fingers were warm and strong as he rubbed her knuckles. Jolts of awareness moved up her arm and from there zipped to all sorts of interesting places in her body. She felt languid and wholly feminine—an unusual combination for her. Normally she went for in charge and intimidating.
“I have a technical question,” he said as he shifted his hand so his thumb could rub against the center of her palm. “It’s about my aunt Ruth.”
“Which is?”
“She’s your grandmother.”
“That’s the rumor,” Julie said, trying to keep her mind on the conversation rather than getting lost in the need stealing through her. She told herself her reaction to Todd was more about the fact that she hadn’t been on a date in over eighteen months than anything he was doing. The problem was, she couldn’t seem to convince herself.
“If she’s my great-aunt and your grandmother,” he said. “That makes us…”
Ah, okay. She understood his concern. “Unrelated. She was your great-uncle’s second wife. They didn’t have any children together. She made it a point to explain all that. She didn’t tell you?”
He withdrew his hand and sat up. “No. She didn’t.”
“Now you know.” Speaking of Grandmother Ruth, Julie was going to have to send her a big thank-you when she got home.
“Now, I do.” He stood and held out his hand to her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Inviting you to dance.”
Dance? As in…dance? She hadn’t done that since high school, and even then she hadn’t been very good.
“They don’t have dancing here,” she said, staying firmly in her seat.
“Of course they do. And now that I know we’re not cousins, let’s dance.”
She was torn between the fear of making a fool out of herself and the thrill of pressing her body against his. Because now that she’d bothered to notice, she could hear soft, slow music in the background. It sounded nice, but it wasn’t nearly as tempting as the man standing in front of her.
“Are you going to make me beg?” he asked.
“Would you?”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “Maybe.”
She rose and put her hand in his. He led her to the rear of the restaurant, where a three-piece combo played and several couples clung to each other on the small dance floor.
Before she could get her bearings, Todd pulled her against him and put his free hand on her waist. She found herself resting her fingers on his shoulder.
He was all hard, lean muscle, she thought as her thighs brushed against his. They weren’t close enough for her breasts to brush against his chest, but she had a sudden wild and inappropriate desire to lean in and rub…like a lonely cat.
Too long without a man, she told herself. And wasn’t this a really inconvenient time to figure that out?
“You smell good,” he murmured in her ear.
“Copier toner,” she whispered back. “Do you like it? I had to change the cartridge today.”
He groaned. “Can’t you take the compliment?”
“All right. Thank you.”
“Better.” He smiled at her. “You’re not easy.”
“Now that’s a compliment I can get behind.”
“You like being difficult?”
“Sometimes. Don’t you?”
He moved his hand from her waist to the small of her back. “Sometimes,” he said, echoing her answer.
She looked into his eyes. “You don’t like people making assumptions about you.”
“You made them.”
“You made them as well. We’re even.”
“More than even, Julie. We’re good.”
With that, he lowered his head and lightly brushed her mouth with his. The kiss was unexpected but delicious. Her stomach clenched and her breasts began to ache. He moved back and forth, but didn’t deepen the kiss.
Public place, she told herself. He didn’t want to embarrass her. She should appreciate that. And she would…in time.
He straightened, then cleared his throat. “We should probably go back and order dinner. You know, be responsible.”
For a heartbeat, she almost asked about the alternative. What would happen if they kept dancing and touching and kissing? Except she kind of had a feeling she knew the answer to the question.
Too much, too soon, she told herself as they stepped apart. She hadn’t been doing the dating thing for a long time—taking it slow made a lot of sense. But the man did tempt her.
He kept her hand in his as they walked back to their table.
“You never told me why you’re here,” he said when they were seated. “I told you Aunt Ruth asked me to come. What’s your excuse?”
He didn’t know? Seriously? Oh, my. This could be good.
“My mother and her mother have been estranged for years. Ruth popped back into our lives a couple of months ago. My sisters and I had never met her before. Mom hadn’t even mentioned her. Last week, at dinner, Ruth said she had a great nephew and suggested one of us go out with you.”
“Interesting.”
“More than interesting. She offered us…it’s not important.”
“Of course it is.”
“You’ll be insulted.”
“I can handle the truth,” he teased. “What did she offer?”
“Money.”
He stared at her. “She’s paying you to date me?”
“Oh, no. The dates are free. Now if I marry you, I get cash. A million dollars. Each. For me, my sisters and my mom. Pretty cool, huh.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, but otherwise, he didn’t show any emotion. She couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking.
“We were all surprised,” Julie said. “We couldn’t figure out what could possibly be so wrong with you that your aunt had to offer that kind of money to get someone to marry you.”
“Wrong? With me?”
“Sure.”
She was enjoying herself, but trying really hard to keep him from knowing.
“We decided that one of us would go on a date and figure out how truly awful you were,” she continued. “We played Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine the most likely candidate.”
He actually flinched at that. “Rock, Paper…” He cleared his throat. “So you won.”
She allowed herself to smile. “Oh, no, Todd. I lost.”
Two
The waiter arrived to take their order. Julie placed hers, then waited while Todd did the same. He barely glanced at the menu, instead keeping his gaze fixed on her.
“You lost?” he asked, his voice slightly strangled. “As in, you didn’t win?”
She allowed herself a small smile. “Uh-huh. You know how it goes. The loser has to do the icky thing. That would be this date with you. Total ick.”
“You lost?”
