Once he was gone, Zora couldn’t help but hiss, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What? I got this,” he continued to insist.
“Who in the hell do you think you’re kidding?” She removed the napkin from her lap and slapped it onto the table. “You’re not fooling anyone. You don’t have enough money to cover the bill on your debit card. Why didn’t we leave when we had a chance to?”
“Oh, because I have a debit card instead a real VISA card, I ain’t good enough for you?”
“What?”
“Uh-huh. Hell, I don’t know why I’m the one footing the bill in the first place. You were the one who asked me out. You were the one who picked this bougie-ass place where they’re charging, like, fifty damn dollars for a glass of water.”
Flabbergasted, Zora’s mouth fell open. This was her fault?
“You know what?” He hopped out of his chair. “I’ma bounce.”
“What?”
“It’s been real.” He tipped his head and then he was gone.
Zora was too stunned to do anything other than to watch him go. Surprisingly, she was relieved. So much so that it was worth the very real possibility of management calling the police on her when they learned that she didn’t have the money to pay for their bill.
Then she felt it—that familiar magnetic pull that created and caused invisible butterflies to flutter wildly in the pit of her stomach. For a few quickened heartbeats, she was afraid to turn and look, but the pull proved to be too strong and her neck slowly turned until her gaze crashed into Jaxon Landon.
And horror of all horrors, he was making his way to her table.
Chapter 9
Jaxon felt like the luckiest sonofabitch in New York.
He’d spent the whole day looking and hoping to stumble across some information that would lure his beautiful supermodel out of her ice castle and here the opportunity of a lifetime just fell into his lap. He even enjoyed the panicked look on his prey as he approached the table. Despite being a seasoned poker player, he couldn’t fight back the smile that crept across his face.
“Hello, Ms. Campbell,” he greeted, pulling out a chair and making himself comfortable. “I hear that we have ourselves a problem.”
“You can’t be the manager,” she said dubiously.
“No,” he admitted with a shrug. “I’m just the owner—well, co-owner. Will that do?”
Zora shifted in her seat, glanced around the restaurant and noticed just a couple heads turned in their direction so she leaned forward and tried to whisper. “Look, there has been this huge misunderstanding tonight. My date, um, was…a little bit short and—”
“Ah, yes. Your date.” Jaxon also glanced around. “Seems like you picked a real winner. Meanwhile, my flowers and phone calls are ignored. I don’t want to say that my ego is bruised, but it might be.”
“Look. I’m not interested in you or your big ego.”
“Ah. You do remember it was big.”
Embarrassed, Zora’s eyes widened and blinking became a challenge. “I didn’t say— I wasn’t referring—”
Jaxon’s smile turned downright sinister. “If it helps, you made quite an impression on me, too. I’m just sorry that we never got that chance to talk in my grandparents’ library. I think a lot of the…misunderstandings between us could have been resolved.”
“Misunderstandings?” Laughing, Zora folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “First of all, there isn’t anything between us and the second thing is there’s been no misunderstanding. You’re engaged and I don’t date other women’s men. Call me picky.” She flashed him a quick, fake smile and then leveled him with an icy stare. If she’d hoped to shave a few inches off his smug smile, she failed miserably. Instead, the unflappably cool ladies’ man looked more amused than turned off.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a beautiful but lousy liar?”
Zora sucked in a startled breath.
“There is definitely something between us.” To prove his point, he reached across the table and lightly brushed his hand across her arm.
Despite the instant electric charge that caused the tiny hairs along her arm to stand, Zora didn’t jerk back. For some strange reason, she couldn’t. In fact, his touch activated a switch that had her imagination conjuring realistic images and sensations of what it would feel like if Jaxon ran his hands on different parts of her body. Instantly, she started quivering and shivering with phantom orgasms that caused her face to darken to a deep cranberry.
Jaxon arched an inquisitive brow, but before he could question her, she finally pulled her arm from his troubling touch. “Looks like it was good for you, too.”
Zora coughed to clear her throat, but when she tried to speak again, it sounded as if she still had a two-hundred-pound frog blocking her airways.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that,” Jaxon said, cupping his ear and leaning closer.
Zora coughed harder and then tested her voice with a small hum before talking. “Mr. Landon, if—”
“Oh, are we back to being formal? I’d hoped that we were at least friends by now—seeing how you saw me naked and everything—well, a part of me naked anyway.”
Zora’s face passed cranberry and was quickly approaching the color of eggplant.
“Of course, I wished the opportunity had been under different circumstances and say, there were less people around. Unless you’re into that sort of thing, then maybe—”
“Stop. Stop.” Zora held up her hands, wanting this cat and mouse game to end. “Let’s just discuss the matter at hand. I don’t have the money for the bill, but I’m good for it. If I can just go home and grab a credit card, I’ll come back and take care of everything. I promise. I’m good for it.”
Jaxon sat there, stared.
“Well?” she prompted, hoping she could hurry up and end this nightmare of an evening sooner rather than later.
“Well, what?” Jaxon asked.
“Can I leave and bring you back a credit card? You know who I am. It’s not like I’m—”
“Oh, you’d like special treatment because you’re a celebrity.” Jaxon rolled his eyes. “Typical.”
“What?” Zora glanced around again. Her paranoia convinced her that there were a few more heads turned in her direction than the last time. “That was not what I meant, and you know it.”
Jaxon gave her a careless half shrug. “I know nothing of the kind. I mean, I’ve only met you once, Ms. Campbell—and you did sort of stand me up for the library. Come to find out that you’re really not a friend of my grandparents. All evidence points to you crashing their anniversary party—though I can’t imagine why. Surely you are invited to more happening parties.”
“I had a date.”
“Oh?” He laughed. “The same one that bailed and stiffed you with tonight’s tab or are we talking about a different asshole?”
Zora laughed. “Definitely a different asshole.”
“Like those, do you?”
She jumped to her feet. “I’m out of here.” She snatched up her purse. “For the record, you have to be the most arrogant, insufferable asshole I’ve ever met. As far as your big ego—I’ve seen bigger!” She took one step and Jaxon’s hand shot out like a python strike and stopped Zora in her tracks.
“I didn’t say that you could go.”
Zora couldn’t believe her ears. “I don’t need your permission.”
“Actually—” Jaxon stood and towered over her “—you do. Unless you want to explain your skipping out on your bill to the police…and whatever tabloid I happen to dial up.”
“You wouldn’t,” she hissed.
“I would—and you know it.”
There was no doubt in Zora’s mind that everyone in the restaurant was now looking at them, while her eyes locked in a silent battle with Jaxon. Zora knew within seconds, it was a war that she wasn’t going to win.
“Better yet,” he said suddenly. “Let’s continue this conversation
in one of the wine rooms.” Jaxon snapped his fingers and the next thing Zora knew they were being ushered to a private room in the back of the restaurant.
The whole time, Zora’s heart pounded so hard and loud that it drowned out her thoughts—or maybe the truth was that she wasn’t thinking at all. She was just…feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever felt anything remotely close to what she was feeling now. It was a heady combination of anxiousness, excitement and fear all rolled into one. It made her light-headed, weak-kneed and still she followed.
I can stop now and turn around, she reasoned. She didn’t stop walking until she was at the private room’s archway. Only then did some semblance of sanity trickle through her mind, but by then it was too late.
“Come in,” Jaxon beckoned in that same buttery baritone that could seduce a nun.
Zora stepped in from the marble hallway onto an exotic Oriental rug.
Jaxon stood by the fireplace, while a new fire crackled to life. The wine room was dim to the point of being romantic.
“How come I get the feeling this isn’t the first time you’ve invited a woman back here?”
Jaxon cocked a half smile, but didn’t take the bait. “Would you like a drink?”
“Sure. Why not?”
He nodded and then moved across the room toward a handsome mahogany bar. “Have a seat,” he instructed.
Amazingly, she continued to follow orders. She took a spot on a leather chaise adjacent to the fireplace.
Jaxon adjusted his jacket. “Now. See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? What would you like?” He set two glasses down on the bar and then plopped two ice cubes in each one.
Zora tilted her head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Don’t worry. I can afford my tab.” He winked. “What’ll it be?”
“Surprise me.”
He smiled. “A woman who’s not afraid to take risks,” he concluded. “Means you’re a woman after my own heart,” he added.
Why did that simple praise make her feel giddy? “Okay, moneybags. Then you can loan me the money for my tab and I can pay you back tomorrow.”
“Oh, no.” He playfully held up his hands and shook his head. “I don’t like loaning money. It makes things sticky between friends. I mean, if you can’t pay me back then the next thing you know I have to play bill collector. Then you would start avoiding my calls and pretending that you don’t remember borrowing any money. Loaning money is a messy business.”
“It’s just a hundred and fifty-six dollars.”
“Which apparently you don’t have right now.”
“I…” Zora snapped her mouth shut when the waiter returned.
“Is there anything else I can get you, sir?”
Jaxon smiled. “No. We’re good.”
When they were alone again, Jaxon offered up his glass for a toast.
“And just what the hell are we toasting to?”
“To new beginnings, of course.” He tapped his glass against hers and took his first sip without waiting for her response.
At this point, Zora needed this drink. It was probably the only thing that could steady her nerves. She meant to only take a sip, but the moment the glass pressed against her lips, she gulped down the whole contents as if it was water.
“Thirsty?” Jaxon asked, amused.
“More like annoyed.”
He pressed a hand against his chest. “With me?” He actually managed to pull off a confused and hurt look. “Excuse me, but I don’t believe that I was the one who took you out to dinner and then stiffed you with the bill.”
“No. You’re just the one that’s holding me hostage until…”
Jaxon’s eyebrows jumped. “Until?”
Zora set her glass down and crossed her arms. “Until you get something out of me.”
“Um. You mean like a tit-for-tat sort of thing?” Jaxon leaned forward, placed both elbows on the table while he stroked an invisible goatee. “That would be pretty immature of me,” he concurred as if she were presenting the idea. “But what do you think would be a fair exchange for something like this?”
“Oh, please. Don’t try and play me.”
“No. No.” He straightened in his chair in an attempt to put his best foot forward. “I like where you were going with this. When you think about it, I’d be taking one heck of a chance on you actually returning to pay your bill. I mean, you should be good for it—but you never know. One reads all the time about how you celebrity types have a hard time managing your money.”
“Then I’ll sign a promissory note,” she said, frustrated.
“You mean like a check? Oh, well. Why didn’t you say so? We’ll make an exception and take a check. You have your checkbook?”
Zora clamped her jaw shut and proceeded to grind her back teeth.
“I’m going to take that as a no.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “You got yourself in quite a predicament here. And I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in you.”
“What?”
“I know I’m technically batting for the other side, but I would’ve thought that a dating veteran—such as yourself—would have a contingency plan for such situations like this. There are a lot of assholes out here. I know. I’m one of them.”
“Glad you can admit it.” Zora shifted in her chair and eyeballed her empty glass.
Jaxon poured her another. “You might look like a lightweight, but something tells me that you could drink me under the table.”
“Are you challenging me? Maybe want to make a wager—say, for one hundred and fifty-six dollars?”
His eyes lit up. The bet surprised—and tempted him. “Something tells me it wouldn’t be a wise wager on my part.”
“Meaning, you’re afraid that you’ll lose?”
“I never lose—because I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Zora rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Chicken.”
“Sticks and stones.” He chuckled and then went back to staring at her. “You didn’t bring any money with you?”
She shrugged. “I have twenty dollars for a cab—okay?”
Jaxon sucked in a breath. “Twenty dollars? Where do you live—around the block?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I already know. It was a rhetorical question.” He waved off her irritation with a flip of his wrist. “Refill?” Again, he didn’t wait for an answer, he just started pouring.
Zora didn’t stop him, but the voice in the back of her head told her to slow down. Clearly, she was going to need her wits about her when dealing with Jaxon. “Do me a favor and just spit it out,” she said.
“Spit what out?”
She rolled her eyes at his determination to play dumb. “Whatever it is that you want.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she quickly cut him off. “Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending not to know what I’m talking about. You want something from me in order to make this one-hundred-dollar problem go away.”
“A hundred and fifty-six dollars,” he corrected.
“What is it?”
Their eyes locked again while they both put up one hell of a fight against the unexplainable and undeniable magnetic pull flowing between them.
“A date,” he finally said. “One whole evening alone with me—tomorrow night.”
Zora’s eyes narrowed. “Tomorrow?”
“We go where I choose—for as long as I choose. There will be no backing out, rain checks or excuses of any kind.”
“Will your fiancée be joining us on this date?”
Jaxon laughed. “Well, that didn’t take long, now did it?”
“That’s not an answer,” she pressed. There was a small part of her fighting not to be completely charmed by this handsome devil—at least not yet.
“It’s sort of complicated,” he admitted, studying her.
“I’m a smart girl. I’m sure I’ll be able to follow whatever bullshit explanation you come up with.”
He now wore a full smile that seemed to evaporate all the oxygen in the air. Of course it didn’t help that the soft amber glow from the fire seemed to dance off his caramel skin. Everything about him just seemed to be too good to be true.
“Can you keep a secret?” Jaxon asked, serious.
The question surprised Zora, but then she nodded and waited.
After a couple of silent seconds, Jaxon confessed. “Kitty is not really my fiancée.”
“Oh, really?” She kept her voice neutral, but she had a hard time swallowing that pill. “So you usually put a rock that big on a woman’s hand for—what—shits and giggles?”
“Usually? No. Though it’s a nice ring. It’s on loan to me from a friend of mine at Cartier.”
“Riiight.” Zora’s instincts were to laugh. “Surely, you’re pulling my leg?”
“No. But I could, if you like. If memory serves me correct, you have the best pair of legs in the business. Taut, long and curvy.” His eyes locked on hers. “Another secret. I’m definitely a leg man.”
Zora frowned. She didn’t know how to take this information. She certainly didn’t think she should believe him. “All right. Why on earth do you have a fake fiancée?”
“Like I said. It’s a little complicated.” He tilted up his drink.
“Like I said, I’m a smart girl.”
He hit her with another smile that made her light-headed. “And beautiful.”
Zora had had millions tell her that, but none of them ever came even close to making her blush the way she was right now. “Thank you.”
“The question is,” he went on, “what am I going to do with you?”
That threw her off. Of course he was making a habit of doing that. “I’m not quite sure that there is something to be done with me,” she volleyed.
“Oooh. I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, taking another sip of his drink. “I can think of a million things to do with you. I just don’t know which one I want to do first.” Jaxon watched her over the rim of his glass. “Then again I’m making a lot of presumptions,” he said.
“Especially for one hundred and fifty-six dollars.” Zora coughed to try to shove her heart back down into her chest.
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