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She took a step further away. She wasn’t going to hand him a glass. “You say that as though it’s a strange request.”
“Not strange. Just unnecessary.”
“You don’t think it’s necessary for me to know your name?”
“My name is irrelevant.”
“You’re not serious?”
He stood, claimed his glass but let her keep her distance. “Look I understand what you’re saying.” He took a sip. Champagne wasn’t his thing, but it was a better fit with his ambitions tonight. More urbane than the sixteen year old single malt Scotch he preferred. “You want to know who I am before you let me inside your body again.”
He saw the shock of his words in the way her shoulders shifted, the flare of her eyes and the parting of her lips. She was taken aback, but she wasn’t shut down. She took a sip. He wanted his tongue to follow where the bubbles led.
“I, ah. Yes, that’s not unreasonable.”
“Just redundant. You already know who I am.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you want to know who I am?”
“Gorgeous, I know who you are.”
“Oh boy.” Said dramatically with an eye-roll that made him laugh. She refilled her glass. Ignored him. “You don’t know anything about me. How old I was when I lost my virginity is, to use your word, irrelevant, to who I am today.”
“You think? I think it’s very relevant. I think you still feel bad about it. About how unfair it was; the double standard. I think you still blame yourself and you’re worried even now about what I think of you because of what you let me do to you last night and what you’re going to let me do to you for the next twenty-four hours.”
She breathed out hard. Put the empty flute down on the table with a sharp crack of glass on glass. She’d guzzled it. This whole deal was out of character for her. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you. You’re the woman whose mother was missing in action. Whose father had no idea what to do with a girl child. Who let her grow up thinking she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, tough enough to make it in the only profession that counted as important to him. Who made sure she did it the hard way so she’d fail quick and it wouldn’t reflect badly on him.”
She glared at him. A thousand pinprick stings in that look. “That’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“You’re speculating.”
“Maybe,” he conceded, taking another sip, letting her examine him and trying not to get too heated by the way she raked her eyes over his body. “But I know you. You’re driven. You love a challenge, the chase. The very idea you can make a difference turns you on.
“You get high on the job and all you need is the next big story. You don’t care about the things most women care about. Not shopping and fashion; you bought that dress today, when you knew I was coming—you’d be in jeans or your work clothes otherwise. Not marriage and babies. You want your life to mean something, to stand for something and then maybe your father will love you enough.”
He sat forward, watching the expressions ripple across her lovely face: intrigue, resentment, offence. “Am I just speculating?”
She’d turned away as his words hit. She watched the boats on the Huangpu.
“That’s not all.” He put his glass down and moved to her side. “You’re passionate, intelligent, fucking sexy, and you don’t know how much you affect me.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. She met his eyes. “You’re alone because you scare most men away, because you won’t pretend, because you tell the truth, because you aren’t their mother, their housekeeper or their whore.” She closed her eyes, her breath was a sigh. “You don’t scare me, Lois.”
Her eyes opened and her head came up. She glared at him like she could see every lie he’d ever told. It almost stopped him.
“But you don’t hesitate to treat me like your whore.” She stepped out of his hold and stalked about the room. “This suite, the flowers, the summons to dinner.” She kept her voice level, she wasn’t angry, but she was pushing back. She owned who she was, but she wasn’t for sale. She was going to throw him out. It was hard to work out if he loved that more than the idea of staying the night with her.
“I meant to treat you like a queen. I meant to make you feel good. I’m rich. The suite, the roses, they’re nothing. If I wanted a whore I could lift an eyebrow in the lobby and I’d have my pick. I’ve had whores, good whores, for years. That’s how I’ve lived. I want you. You’re real to me. I thought you wanted me too.”
She considered him. Such a cool appraisal with those big round eyes. He kept still and let her make the next move. Not that leaving was an option; now that he’d seen the strength in her, been reminded of her composure, and comfort with own skin.
“You meant to buy me.”
A statement of fact so obviously true he had to laugh.
