I looked down. “I just don’t understand your…” I couldn’t find the right word.
He laughed. “Sometimes I think you’ve changed and then you say something like that. You said the same thing five years ago. What do you think is wrong with you that someone wouldn’t be interested in you?”
“Is that what you are? Interested?” Part of me wanted him to say yes, and yet I knew the answer had to be no. Not if I was going to protect Andrew. “Or is this more of the thrill of the chase?”
He gave me a smile that was a mixture of affable and coy. “I don’t know yet.”
“We’re too old to play that game,” I said standing. “I’m sure there is some other woman out that would enjoy being chased by you.”
He shook his head. “Actually. There isn’t. I don’t normally have to chase.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. I’m the only woman who can resist you.”
“So far.” He stood.
“Your arrogance is showing.” What was worse was that there was something sexy in his arrogance.
“Probably. You don’t get why I’m attracted to you, and to be honest, Serena, these days, I wonder too. The last time we were together, it was a lot easier. You seemed to enjoy my attention. And if I remember correctly, it turned out it wasn’t the thrill of the chase that had me. I was ready to start something with you. You’re the one that chickened out.”
He was right.
“What baffles me more is why all the hostility toward me.
”
“I’m not the same person anymore, Devin. I don’t have time for flings.”
He laughed, but when he finished his drink, I noted annoyance in his eyes. “Fling. Right.” He set his glass down. “I’m going to be at the house tomorrow.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you want this opportunity to put on a party for the Roarke family, be there…let’s say about nine. If not, I’ll find someone else.”
His words could have meant so many different things. His finding someone else could be personal, as in he’d find another woman. Or he could be telling me he’d find another planner. Maybe he’d even find one outside my company. That last thing I needed is getting blamed for losing the Roarke family as a client.
I took the card. “Okay.”
“I’ll walk you out.” He held his hand out toward the lounge exit. I made my way through the bar and restaurant toward the elevator.
He poked the button and waited with me. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to escort me out of the building, but I sensed that he was still irritated at me, so I kept quiet. I could handle an elevator ride.
When the car arrived, he let me in first. I leaned back against the back wall as a new wave of fatigue hit me.
“Would you think it rakish of me to offer to drive you home?” he said leaning against the wall next to me.
I closed my eyes, hating to be so difficult with him. “I can call a car.”
He nodded, and while I was glad that he wasn’t going to fight me on it, I admit I was disappointed too.
“Do you have someone in your life now?” he asked.
I did, but not in the way he meant. “Just work. You?”
He frowned. “Do you think because I have money and power that I use women? That I’d be showing interest in you if I had a woman at home?”
Crap, again I was coming off as a bitch. “I don’t know you, Devin. Not really.”
“I suppose it was a good thing then that you didn’t come with me five years ago if that’s the kind of man you think I am.”
I turned to him, not realizing until too late how close he was to me. He turned too, our eyes holding as he stared and waited for me to say what was on my mind.
“You act like I broke your heart, Devin and we both know that you haven’t been a monk these last five years.”