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“Or very bad.”
“Sometimes,” he says, with a small smile as he pulls the band from my hair and rakes his finger through it, making me shiver with pleasure from the sudden release of the pull, and from the soft slide of his fingers against my scalp and then down through my hair, “sometimes, that’s the exact same thing.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m not falling over myself to please you, and maybe I’m not impressed.”
“Maybe,” he says. “And maybe I like a challenge.”
The electrified taunt in his words is full of sensual innuendo and my stomach flip-flops. “In a few weeks, you’ll be able to impress all the women your trashy heart desires and you won’t even have to try.”
“Trashy?” He winces.
“Trashy.”
Now he slides his hand down along my cheekbone. “I’m not trashy. And how is this about me? I’m talking about you.”
“I’m a boring subject,” I say, going to push his hand away, but instead he turns it on me and links our fingers. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“The flirting.”
“Friendly flirting,” he says. “I’m natural born. I don’t even color it. And what the fuck’s wrong with a little flirting?”
“Oh, you know the jewels, the company you want to remain in your family. The big change you have to do.”
“Appear to do.”
I take in a breath, but I can’t tell him what his mother said to me. I don’t even know what she was trying to get at with it beyond her general warning. “Sometimes you have to give a little, bring that change into you, to make it believable.”
“That’s your job and you’re changing the subject.” Suddenly, he points a finger at me. “You don’t like flirting because it puts the attention on you.”
“No. I don’t like stupid flirting when there’s nothing behind it.”
He lifts the corner of his mouth. “But that’s ridiculous. Flirting is like air. It’s what keeps you alive and it’s good. Also, flirting is just what you said.”
“So you admit it’s empty?” I ask. “With nothing behind it.”
Ryder doesn’t speak for a moment. “Not what I said. Look at it like shopping.”
“I’m not into shopping.”
But he ignores me as he looks around my apartment and back at me.
“You know what I mean, Sinclair. Not into the boutiques. Not into having to spend my money to feel good. There’s window shopping, and there’s seeing something and going for it. Flirting is window shopping. Sometimes it’s just for fun and then you see what you like, really like, and it morphs.”
“Flirting is a transformer?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’s still got my hand, I realize, our fingers linked. Ryder points at me again with his free hand. “And you’re wiggling out. You don’t like the attention on you.”
“I don’t get attention. I’m not you.”
He frowns. “Only because you choose not to. You hide, and I bet you like to reflect the attention. I’m betting you’ve done this so long you don’t realize it. I bet you did that growing up.”
“That’s a lot of bets.” But his words make something ring out in me.
“I’d win them all. You reflect by nurturing. It’s in your company, it’s in how you operate, in how you choose beautiful old things, and it’s in your plants. And I bet if I asked, you were one of those nurturer kids. See, that way you can hide and feel good.”
“That’s bullshit.”
