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What he really wanted to find out was if she still objected to the physical connection between them. And if so, why. When he factored in everything that Serena meant to him, her newly single status and the timing of this transfer, it seemed fate was handing him this opportunity on a silver platter.
But Serena was on edge and clearly not about to fall into his lap—delightful as that prospect was. He needed to romance her, convince her, figure out her reservations and overcome them one by one. His desire to handle this with finesse was why he hadn’t simply sprung his relocation announcement on her already. But he had supreme confidence that he could win her over. That was why he was on the business-development side of things at AGI—his specialty was new partnerships, finding or creating opportunities and overcoming any obstacles with various means of persuasion.
Persuading Serena would be far more enjoyable than, say, persuading the CEO of Digi-Dial, leaders in cell-phone technology.
Her office door swung open with a gentle creak, and Serena appeared, holding a massive beige purse that looked more like a weapon against muggers than something they might steal. In Boston, she would have needed a jacket, but it was warm here.
“Sorry I took so long,” she said. Her tone was breezy and her smile even, but she ran her hand through her honey-blond, not-quite-chin-length curls in a self-conscious gesture.
“Not a problem.”
She turned to lock up the suite. “If you’d like, I can suggest a place for dinner.”
“Lord, no.”
Serena was big on what she called “cultural color,” and while four out of five places she picked were surprisingly excellent (with the fifth being horrific), David desired something a bit more intimate tonight. He didn’t want their conversation to be interrupted by some poetry reading, and he didn’t want to have to worry about exotic herbs in their unpronounceable entrées that might lead to indigestion or unkissable breath. Just because he was prepared for longer-term wooing didn’t mean he couldn’t be optimistic.
“And what’s wrong with the places I pick?” she asked, glaring down at him.
He stood. “They usually look like they’re only still in business because someone bribed the health inspector.”
“But they have fabulous food. Usually.” She sniffed. “A restaurant doesn’t have to have valet parking to be worth eating at.”
“I know that.” If his tone was defensive, it was because he’d just realized he’d been to at least three restaurants this week that used valet service. “But, tonight I want to take you…someplace nice.” He could tell her they were celebrating his likely promotion, except he wasn’t ready to tell her his news yet.
They headed toward the building’s canopied main entrance. David reached out to open the door for her, but she’d already pushed it open herself.
Following her into the early-evening shadows, he felt a ridiculous need to prove she wasn’t the only one who’d ever discovered a culinary treasure in an offbeat hole-in-the-wall. “There was a dive you would have loved in Boston.”
“Meaning what?” She whipped her head around, impaling him with her narrowed eyes. “That I can only appreciate dives?”
Nice. Seduce women often, idiot? But he hadn’t expected Serena to be so touchy.
“Meaning you would have seen beyond the unrefined décor, and you would have loved the live bands and the oyster bar’s creative menu.”
“Ah.” On the sidewalk, she stopped, glancing between David and her dilapidated decade-old Honda.
Letting himself bump into her would have been transparent, but he came awfully close before he, too, drew up short. She’d never wear an expensive, trendy perfume, but whatever she had on smelled like spices and rare exotic flowers swirled in one heady, lust-inducing scent.
“Since you obviously don’t need a recommendation from me, where do you want to go?” Serena asked.
To the nearest bedroom.
“In case we get separated in traffic,” she added.
“Separated? We can ride together.” In light of her apparent skittishness about spending time with him, he appealed to her time-honored sense of thrift. “I have to pay for the rental car whether we use it or not.”
She sighed. “Let me guess, you’re the Beemer over in the corner.”
“Not even close.” He gestured toward a sleek yellow convertible. “That’s mine. Temporarily, anyway.”
Her body tensed as she took in the sexy sports car, then she shot him a look of such unexpected disdain that he wondered if he’d have been better off with the BMW.
“Men. I suppose it was the flashiest one on the lot?”
The brightly colored fantasy on wheels had actually reminded him of Serena, but she didn’t seem to be in the right mood to appreciate that compliment. “Well, it is yellow—”
“Extremely.”
“—so I figured the pollen that coats everything here wouldn’t show up as much.” He shrugged when she didn’t smile at the joke. “The weather’s been dreary in Boston, and this looked like a great ride for the weekend.”
“Looks expensive,” she muttered. “What is it they say about men and cars and overcompensation?”
Without making a conscious decision to do so, he leaned forward, closing much of the space between them. “And what inadequacy do you think I need to compensate for?”
She blinked up at him. “None. It was a random comment. You…” As she trailed off, her eyes moved downward to the front of his pants, and her admiring gaze took what felt like his entire blood supply down with it. “Nothing inadequate about you.”
Damn right. Still, he almost wished she’d challenged his prowess in some way. Then they could’ve skipped dinner, leaving him free to spend the rest of the night making his case.
3
SERENA was sure someone, somewhere, had put a lot of time and thought into creating the right ambience for the restaurant, but the surroundings were wasted on her. She couldn’t focus on anything outside of the intimate booth she and David shared.
The table for two was small enough that they could easily hold hands without having to reach for each other, not that they would be holding hands. Or touching each other at all, except for occasional accidents, such as his legs brushing hers under the table as they had just now. She almost jumped, her nerves taut with awareness.
His knee bumping mine is not sexy.
No, but the memories she had of their limbs intertwined beneath tangled sheets certainly were.
David leaned back against the richly upholstered bench opposite hers. “I know what I want. What about you, Serena?”
As with three-quarters of the comments he’d made on the drive to the restaurant, she couldn’t tell if he intended his words to have a double meaning, or if she simply had a one-track mind. His tone was innocent enough, which in and of itself was immediate cause for suspicion.
“I haven’t decided.” The menu in its embossed burgundy cover gave her something to hide behind when she worried her one-track thoughts would be revealed on her face.
After the time she’d taken in her office to adjust to his presence, the ride to the restaurant had been more relaxed than their initial encounter. His cologne was still driving her crazy—to say nothing of her preoccupation with his hands as he’d fiddled with the air vents and shifted gears—but she’d enjoyed being in his company. By the time he’d moved to Boston, they’d been friends long enough to have developed their own conversational rhythm, following each other’s thoughts, knowing when it was safe to heckle the other about something and what subjects were more sensitive. So talking to him in the car hadn’t been difficult. They’d discussed Inventive Events at length, and David’s enthusiasm for her small but spunky business endeared him to her even further.
Now that she thought about it, her job had monopolized conversation, and she still wasn’t clear on what work-related project had brought David to town. But, after dating an artist who was a minor celebrity in public opinion and a major celeb in his own, it had been gratifying for someone to show so much interest in what she did for a living. Her father, James, firmly believed there were more dignified ways to earn an income—ones that would probably reflect better on him—and certainly steadier incomes to be earned, given her education. Whenever Serena mentioned her company to him, he got a pained look on his face that she recognized from childhood.
It was the same one he’d always given her mom.
“Serena?”
She jerked her head up from a list of pasta entrées she hadn’t been reading. “Still looking.”
“No, I just wondered if everything was all right.” David frowned. “You seemed…troubled.”
“My mind wandered for a second. As seldom as I see James and Meredith, you had the bad luck to catch me on a week when I have.” She knew her father was genuinely making an effort these days, but she’d honestly be glad when his early-June wedding to Meredith McPherson was behind them. With luck, he’d just go back to ignoring Serena. “Sorry. Guess not enough time’s passed for me to have sufficiently detoxed from the visit.”
“Oh.” The lines of worry in David’s expression eased. “That’s a relief.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Not that I’m relieved by any trouble you’re having with your family, just that I was concerned I might have upset you. I suddenly felt like maybe I’d strong-armed you into dinner.”
Serena laughed. “You mean because you traveled across all those states, told me you wouldn’t accept no for an answer and wouldn’t even let me take my own car?”
“Is that all?” He flashed a grin. “It seemed worse in my head.”
A moment later, he asked, “You want to talk about it? James and Meredith, I mean.”
“No.” She’d vented to David before, but not usually face to face. Besides, the last time she’d discussed her father with someone—her yoga-instructor friend Alyson—she’d ended up feeling whiny and disgusted with herself. “Big no.”
David glided to the next logical topic. “Heard from Tricia lately?”
The mention of her adventurous, live-life-to-the-fullest mother made Serena feel surprisingly wistful, and she shook her head. “She and her latest lover, Miguel, are communing with South American nature far from the nearest modem or cell phone roaming area.” Her mom, who hadn’t had time to visit Serena in over a year, would have liked Patrick—they had the same respect for following “spiritual journeys.” And the same inability to be there for someone else.
When the waiter arrived, Serena ordered a fettuccine plate. David, the carnivore, selected a New York strip.
“Very good.” The waiter jotted down notes about side dishes and how to prepare the meat. “And you’re sure you wouldn’t like to see a wine list? We have a fabulous house chardonnay.”
“Yes!…No.” Serena was a bit too emphatic in her assurance, and she pretended not to see David’s grin at her speedy response. “Yes, I’m sure that no, I don’t need anything to drink.”
They hadn’t had nearly enough alcohol last summer to blame their indiscretions on impaired judgment, but the last thing she needed right now was something that lowered her already half-mast inhibitions. David’s eyes alone triggered stabs of yearning in her. Would it really be so bad to ditch her inhibitions for the night? she asked herself as the waiter ambled to the next table.
Ending her dry spell with David, then sending him safely back to Boston with a quick kiss goodbye and a promise to stay in touch was tempting.
But dangerous, too. How willing was she to risk their friendship? Though she had friends, few had known her as long or as well as David. He was…special. Obviously her family wasn’t ever going to be her main source of comfort and stability.
Newsflash, her libido informed her. There’s more to life than stability.
Ignoring the way her inner muscles clenched whenever David happened to touch her, she reminded herself that one night together had already changed their relationship. Her powerful and conflicting emotions now were a perfect example. She didn’t want things to unravel further. Among the many topics they discussed, she and David often mentioned their love lives, and before last summer, she’d never felt jealous. Well, hardly ever. But in the past few months, mention of that Tiffany person had given Serena far more of a twinge than had Patrick staying with an old girlfriend when he’d passed through New Mexico.
A self-sufficient woman, Serena did best in relationships where she and her partner could be alone together, as contradictory as that sounded. Yet, when David had gone back to Boston after his last visit, she’d missed him. A lot. In an uncomfortably needy, vulnerable way.
So the answer to your question, she told her libido, is yes. It would be that bad to ditch the inhibitions.
She might not have many, but for tonight she was clinging to them. Even she—a woman who hadn’t been with a man in months, a woman who had listened enviously to the erotic details of Alyson’s tantric sex life—could keep her willpower intact for one night. With any luck, the next time Serena saw David she’d be safely involved with someone who had put an end to her sexual drought.
She set down the water she’d been sipping; her thirst wasn’t what needed to be quenched. “So, what exactly brings you to Atlanta this weekend? I missed the specifics while we were trying to figure out where to turn.”
“I saved the best news for last.” He surprised her by lightly brushing his hand over hers. Little pinpricks of heat shimmered up her arm. “You’re looking at Atlanta’s newest resident. AGI’s moving its corporate headquarters here, and I’m heading up the advance team.”
Moving? To her city? Within driving distance of her bedroom?
“Y-you aren’t going back to Boston?”
“Well, yeah, temporarily. This is an exploratory visit. I’ll be here through Tuesday, then go back to tie up all the loose ends. But after that, you may be seeing a lot of me.”
Did she get to pick which parts?
Her willpower, which had been prepared for the demanding but blessedly short-lived sprint through a single intimate evening, now cramped at the thought of the endurance required for the long haul. She searched her mind for something that would help. “So…where does Tiffany fall on the ‘loose ends’ spectrum?”
His eyes widened. “Tiffany? Why would you ask about her?”
“Friendly curiosity. Isn’t she your girlfriend?”
“That’s a much more popular misconception than I realized,” he mumbled. “No, she isn’t. She apparently thought she was. Until she left me earlier this week.”
“You were ditched by someone you weren’t even dating?” Serena chuckled. “And I thought my getting dumped was pathetic.”
“Dumped? You’re kidding. I assumed you finally called things off because you were tired of carrying on an exciting affair with postcards.”
He made a good point. Why hadn’t she ended the going-nowhere relationship?
Patrick possessed a fair amount of charisma, but that had been wearing thin even before he’d left town. She’d been philosophical about her lack of enthusiasm, though. None of the men she’d spent time with in the last nine months had caused much zing inside her. Without meaning to, without even realizing it until after the fact, she’d fallen into the dating equivalent of, “Why change the channel? Nothing else good is on.”
David leaned back as the waiter set down their plates, then asked as soon as the man walked away, “What did happen, exactly? With you and the Wanderer?”
“He was searching for inspiration. Apparently, it’s in Yuma.” She twirled pasta around her fork. “He’s staying.”
“I thought this whole roving-the-country thing was a chance to—help me out here?”
“‘Soak up myriad experiences and settings and return triumphant, synthesizing them into his work,’” she recited.
“Uh-huh. So, no synthesizing?”
Was it too late to tell the waiter she’d changed her mind about having a drink? “Yes. He’ll just be synthesizing in Yuma. He told me I was welcome to visit him, but Atlanta was ‘asphyxiating his art.’”
David’s lips twitched. “It can breathe in Arizona?”
“I hear they have good air there.”
He focused intently on his plate while he cut his steak into tiny pieces, all the while biting hard on his lower lip.
“Oh, just get it over with,” she ordered, fighting a giggle herself. “Go ahead and laugh.”
He did.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a gifted artist,” David said, more magnanimous than he’d ever been when she was actually dating Patrick. “Lousy boyfriend, though. I never could figure out why you stayed with him.”
That was par for the course—David hadn’t exactly been drinking buddies with anyone she’d dated. The reverse was also true, though. From the preppie ex-prom queen Student Housing had placed Serena with to the string of cool blondes from family money she’d watched David date, most of his romantic choices made her cringe. Did he really have fun with those women? Come to think of it, he was probably asking himself the same thing about her and Patrick.
How could she explain that in some selfish way, the absentee relationship had been ideal? She’d been able to combat loneliness by being “involved,” yet she’d never had to give up her side of the bed. She hadn’t even shaved her legs unless she felt like it.
She shrugged. “My line of work, I’m pretty busy during the prime weekend dating hours, so I didn’t mind his being gone that much. I could call him if I needed to talk and still got gifts on my birthday and major holidays. Few of the hassles of a normal relationship, all the benefits. Except fantastic sex.”
David set down his fork and studied her for a long, electric moment. The humor they’d shared evaporated beneath the heat in his gaze. “You know, Serena, there are guys who could give you the friendly ear, birthday cards and space to do your job…and the fantastic sex.”
