“Doing a good job at what?”
He unlocks the car door with a click, opens it for me, and gestures for me to get in and have a seat. He walks around and sits beside me. The car purrs to life, and the lights dim. It’s like being in a movie theater car and I’m waiting for the show to begin.
“Doing a good job at, like… being my date,” I say, super lamely. “You’ve just been every bit the gentleman tonight, and girls like that shit.”
His lips twitch. “Good. I’m glad girls like that shit. I have to redeem my reputation, after all.”
“I didn’t really mean it like that—”
“No, babe.” My God, I love it when he calls me babe. Makes me feel like a babe, like my belly flattens and my boobs enlarge just by hearing me called that. “It’s true. I fucked things up.” He clears his throat. “Not sure you heard the accusations, or saw things in the media…”
I shrug. “Heard a few things, but you never know what’s true and what isn’t.”
“Glad you have the insight to see that. Not everyone does.”
“I don’t really give a shit what everyone does. Or what they think. Or what they think of me.”
“Good,” he says with a nod. “That makes two of us, then.”
He reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“My PR company, though… they care. And I want you to know the truth, especially if you hear any bullshit.” He blows out a breath, then flicks on the directional to take us on the highway. Boston’s lit up like a runway, the hulking brownstones and skyscrapers bedecking the night sky like jewels. I watch as he easily navigates his car onto the crowded highway. He’s taking us to his place.
“I dated a woman who used me. She fabricated abuse charges. She tried to ruin me, but I have good lawyers and she was lying through her teeth, so the accusation was thrown out. Doesn’t matter that she lied, though. You toss around words like abuse on social media, and the vultures attack.”
I wince. “Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
I know he can be angry and tumultuous and grumpy. Has he only been on his best behavior with me?
“What was her accusation?”
“Said I verbally assaulted her.”
“Huh. On what grounds?”
“None. I may be an ass, but I don’t verbally assault women. Ever.”
I hold his gaze as he says this and look for all the signs of lying.
He isn’t lying.
I nod. “You’re telling the truth. I believe you.” I shake my head. “It’s a shame people don’t know how to check the most basic facts to know whether or not people are lying.”
Everything about the tone of his voice and his body language shows frustration, but sincerity. He isn’t making any of this up, I know he isn’t.
He scowls at me, and I’m not sure why. That said, he scowls sort of a lot, so I’m starting to get used to it. It’s kind of his default.
“You believe me,” he says, in an almost accusatory tone.
“Uh, yes. Is that a… problem?”
He blinks, then shakes his head. “No, it’s just that…” His voice trails off for a moment, and when he speaks again, his words sound a bit thicker. “No one else has before. Except my staff, but you may have noticed I keep a very small staff.”
“I have,” I say, because I totally did. I can count on one hand the number of people he confides in. It’s kinda my job to know these things, and I can tell already that Winnie’s top of the list and Raul second, maybe in reverse order, but there are no other go-to’s. He has staff at the restaurant and plenty of employees, but that seems about it for confidantes.
“I’m guessing you have trust issues?”
His lips twitch, as if flirting with, yet not quite giving into, a smile. “Perhaps. Maybe I don’t like to let my guard down. Maybe I don’t like to get close to people, but when I do… I’m all in.”
Why does that make my skin tingle?
“All in. No dipping your toes in the shallow end, just whoosh, in you go?”
He pulls down the road toward his place, the bright city lights twinkling like crystals set in an indigo sky. “Whoosh,” he says with one of those dark chuckles that makes me go all weak in the knees. “In I go. Unless,” he says almost thoughtfully, “someone plays hard to get.”
I snort. “Yeah, so that’s not me.”
“Oh, really?”
I lie back in the seat, pleasantly warm and full, sort of liking the lighter tone the conversation’s taken. I’d close my eyes and take a little nap right here, but someone’s gotta keep an eye on him.
“I don’t ‘play’ anything, Miguel. So there’s no playing hard to get.”
“You’re just hard to get?”
“Dude, need I remind you that you made me climax over your desk like forty-eight hours after we met?”