She pressed her lips together, frowned, and lowered her head.
He scooped one of the cups off his desk. “That’s what I thought. Look, Lenny, I should’ve kept my mouth shut. You don’t want to be anywhere near this.”
“You said you needed a light and sound show, and you’d do the rest.” Up came her eyes, a hard surface to slam him. “Was that a lie?”
“I’ve never lied to you. There’s no reason to.”
“So what’s your problem?”
She was his problem. The chance to work with Lenny, to have her by his side as his partner, where he could legitimately take her out and dance with her, eat a meal with her, touch her, and not need to worry he was noxious poison for her.
“I don’t have a problem.” But that was a lie. He shook his head. “Wait. I lied. This is never going to work.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I could trust you. We both want the same thing. Enemies united by a common cause. Limited time, offer expires.”
The things he wanted with Lenny didn’t have any place in this conversation. He needed to talk her out of this in a way that made it her decision not something he coerced. “We’d have to be in a relationship.”
“What?”
He pinned her. “It won’t work otherwise. We have to present to the world as if we’re dating, as if we’re intimate. There would need to be some touching.” God help him.
“But we won’t be intimate.”
He’d let her wriggle free when he’d applied enough pressure. “We will be when we’re in public.”
“I could cope.” She squared her shoulders. “It’s not like you haven’t already had your hands all over me.” She was fighting back.
“It’s not like you didn’t like it. We both wanted that kiss.”
“Fuck you, Halsey Sherwood.”
Slammed, and it kind of hurt. “See? This will never work.” Sometimes, being right felt hellishly wrong.
“No, no, it’ll work.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “We sound like every couple I’ve ever known.”
She’d gotten out from under him with a twist he hadn’t seen coming. They stared at each other. He crushed the cup in his hand.
“Lenore Nicole Bradshaw. You went to NYU, though you could’ve gone anywhere you chose. You studied business and law and slaved away as a strategy consultant at Slate, Lipton, and Polk before deciding to start D4D with Fin. You and Fin have been best friends since you took dance classes together when you were ten. You stuck together through thick and thin. She’s the only one in your life who knows how bad things have gotten at home.”
He didn’t know that for sure, but Lenny confirmed it with the way her shoulders drooped.
“You’ve wanted to have your own not-for-profit since high school. It’s in your yearbook. D4D almost went under, but it’s healthy now and doing excellent work. It took a lot for you to come here, because I’m your worst nightmare—a man you know is a crook, who won’t get caught for the very same crime your dad committed.”
Lenny’s chin came up, and she straightened her back. “You’re trying to scare me off.”
“You’re very sure of yourself until I use a word like ‘relationship,’ and then all your stitching comes undone.”
She crossed one leg over the other and swung it, more furiously then nonchalantly. The shoes were killer; the legs were superb. “You only think you know me. I’m full of surprises.”
And the main surprise was how much he looked forward to discovering that. He owned his fastidiousness. He had standards, and Lenore Bradshaw with her visionary, go get it, take it on the chin, solve my own problems, peach-ripe body was checking all the boxes, lusciously.
Which made it useful that she hated him, because in the field there was no room for emotions.
She scowled, her eyes narrowing, and then she laughed.