His eyes told her to drop it, so she did.
“So romantically...”
“We’ve covered that.”
“You vacillate between coy and evasive.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“Ask what you want to ask.”
“Your ‘dating’ life is well-documented by gossip sites.”
“Not a question. And why did you air quote dating?”
Emma shuffled through her notes.
“You were filmed having sex in a box at the Met.”?“I wasn’t having sex in that video. It was just a little foreplay. You try sitting through a German opera.”
“You were arrested for...” she checked the wording, “public indecency for receiving oral sex from an unnamed actress at the Central Park reservoir.”
“It was two in the morning, and the charges were dropped.”
“Then there’s the observation deck at Rockefeller Center. Are you an exhibitionist, Nathan?”
“Yes. Unashamedly, but the roof was closed for a private function at the time.”
He made no apologies for his behavior outside of the office. That was an understatement. Last spring, he had graced the cover of Vanity Fair standing in the Plaza Hotel fountain fully clothed, flanked by two bikini-clad supermodels each with her hands clasped on one of his broad shoulders and a sleek knee rubbing each hip. Tie askew, big hands around their slim waists, he looked like a modern-day Errol Flynn.
“Okay, so no Mrs. Right, only Mrs. Right Now?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re a tease, Nathan.”
“Am I?” he smirked.
She growled in frustration. She took a deep breath and danced close to the flame.
“There are times you seem serious, even passionate. Then suddenly you act like you don’t give a shit about anything.”
“I give a shit about a lot of things, as you so eloquently put it. I do not, however, give a shit about interviews.” His face was impassive. She met his gaze.
“Then why agree?”
“I’m wondering that myself.” His frustration was only apparent in the added amount of control he exhibited. He straightened a throw pillow and squared a magazine on the coffee table—one that she noticed off-handedly had him on the cover. He was keeping his external world orderly to balance an inner upheaval. She knew that because she did the same thing herself. She should have backed off, given him time to gather himself, but she didn’t.
“Was there one who got away?”
His mind drifted for a moment, then he scrubbed his face with his hand. He suddenly looked exhausted.
“Not the way you mean... no.”
“Why do I get the feeling that, like the scar on your lip, I’m not getting the complete picture?”
“It’s not for public consumption,” he snapped.
“Off the record?”