He sipped his scotch. Licked his lips. Remained silent.
Okay. She’d go for the direct route. “You wanna talk about it?”
He slipped his finger and thumb under his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You don’t want to hear about it,” he blew out on a sigh.
She should respect that he didn’t want to talk about it. But she couldn’t imagine who else he had to talk to. As the boss, he couldn’t let his employees know he had doubts. And while she couldn’t be sure, it was a safe bet that Lissa and Landon hadn’t exactly lent their ears to one another.
That left… well… that left her.
“How do you know I don’t want to hear about it?” She’d love to hear him talk about anything. Love to just sit here and listen to his deep voice interrupted every so often by a sip of scotch.
He dropped his hand and peered into his glass. He was silent for so long, she’d begun feeling guilty for backing him into a corner. He surprised her by speaking.
“You want to hear me rant about how I have a team of imbeciles assigned to the most important account of my career?” he said, eyes on his glass. “Tell you how, no matter which way I attempt to steer them, they mutiny and run us into the nearest iceberg? Or maybe you’d like to hear about how I stomped into the boardroom like a lunatic and demanded we reconvene tomorrow morning?”
“On a Saturday?”
He sent her a dry look.
She returned it with a weak smile. “Sorry.”
He let out a sigh. “And I know you don’t want to hear how I realized on my way home tonight that I’m placing blame where it doesn’t belong. Railing on the best designers in the business because I am the one who’s hit a creative block.” His lips pressed together, then he spoke, almost talking to himself now. “Every direction I try to take the design, it runs me ashore.”
“That’s a lot of boat references,” she quipped.
He squinted at the buildings in the distance, his lips tipping into more of a sneer than a smile. A light winked out, then another. “I can’t believe I admitted that,” he muttered quietly.
Kimber had given up on getting things one hundred percent right one hundred percent of the time. Hell, she was lucky to get things half right a third of the time. “You still suffer the delusion you’re not allowed to make mistakes, don’t you?”
He met her eyes and uttered a stern, “Yes.”
She grinned. He was kidding. She was starting to pick up on his dry sense of humor. “When I find my brain in the way”—she paused to roll her eyes—“which doesn’t happen all that often, I go with what feels right.”
“What feels right.” He repeated her words like she’d spoken them in a foreign tongue.
“Yes. You do have feelings, don’t you?”
He answered with a bland blink. He wasn’t Mr. Control all the time. Regardless of what he wanted people to think, she knew better. He wasn’t who he pretended to be on the outside. The buttoned-up-and-down CEO who rarely let go. The rigid, disciplined man who checked his and Lissa’s relationship off like a task on his to-do list. He could hide at work, even in public, but not in his home.
She’d seen him interact with Lyon enough to see the man practically melt in the presence of his only nephew. As if there’d been any doubt considering the piles of Lego sets and game boards he’d overstocked the boy’s bedroom with. And, on a very personal level, she had seen the heat in Landon’s eyes when he looked at her. Had felt the very real attraction between them last night. That hadn’t been a mirage.
“Don’t you ever go with your gut?” she pressed when he remained silent. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to talk to him. Especially after his out-of-character monologue. She was right. He did need someone to unload on.
One thick, dark blond brow rose. “My gut.”
He’d gone back to echoing her every question rather than answer. Avoidance. Well, she was no longer in the mood to let him off the hook. “Yes. Don’t you ever use something other than your big, thinky brain?”
The brow went higher, along with one corner of his mouth. “Did you just use the word ‘thinky’?”
Stubble had pressed through his sharpened jaw, making him look a tad dangerous, even in half an Armani suit and designer tie. She had the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch his cleft chin, maybe run a fingertip along his lips. She’d longed to feel even the briefest brush of his mouth last night, only to be thwarted by a parched six-year-old. She wanted to shift her gaze to the monitor to see if Lyon still slept, but knew that Landon would read her as clearly if she said All clear! Let’s make out.