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It’s a struggle to keep my face expressionless when I sit.
“Have you thought about it? Putting everything behind you—for now?” he says, pushing the menu towards me.
I stare at him. “Maybe I’d consider that once I know your ulterior motive.”
He looks amused. “Ulterior…motive?”
A waiter sweeps over to us. “Would you like to start with some appetizers?”
Bran gives me a knowing smile. “Andrea said you were partial to the stuffed mushrooms.”
I make a mental note to kill Andrea later before giving him a stiff nod. The waiter leaves, and Bran looks at me questioningly.
“What ulterior motive do you suppose I have?”
“Oh,” I say, leaning over to flick the red rose in the center of the table towards me. “Consider me cynical, but why would anyonea journalist has battered keep sending flowers and insisting on a date? Isn’t this a perverse plan to get me to back down from writing articles about you? You somehow think that if you keep being nice and charming, I’ll see the good in you and stop posting about you?”
His blue eyes gleam with pleasure. “You think I’m charming?”
My face flames. “No,” I say quickly, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. I want to pick up the nearest fork and shove it into my thigh. Instead, I continue to talk to him. “What I think is that youthink I am a complete fool. That somehow, some nice notes and nice gestures will make me forget everything I know about you.”
I pause, wondering if we’re about to start an argument similar to the one we had in his office, when he tried to convince me he wasn’t a bad person. I think back to how that argument ended, and my stomach grows queasy.
Well, at least there’s a huge table separating us this time.
“You might be right,” he says. “It is a logical conclusion that me being nice is just for show.”
I raise my brows, confused for a moment. He’s not supposed to agree with me.
“But,” he says then, and my confusion dissipates, “there is anotherconclusion, one thatIwould have drawn if I were in your shoes.”
“Oh, yeah?” I say. “Which is?”
“That I want you.”
My entire stomach dissolves into a pit. “What?” I hear myself mutter.
His gaze does not leave me, not even for a bit. “I want you, Georgina,” he says, while goosebumps rise on my arms at the sound of my name on his lips. “You’re damn near the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. And you're the only woman who has ever made it their mission to insult me every single day. You make my life thrilling, and I almost anticipate what you'll write about me next.”
I’m speechless.
He leans towards me. “I know that you assume that everything that comes out of my mouth is either a complete lie or halfway so, but I know you know how much I want you. You felt how much I wanted you from the moment I met you.”
I remember Andrea’s wedding. His erection against my stomach. And how I wanted to be with him. How I pressed myself against him because I wanted to feel more of him.
He’s not lying this time,I tell myself.
I rub my thighs against each other, feeling a mix of desire, embarrassment, and humiliation. As much as I hate it, Iwant him too. Even more than I did at Andrea’s party. And I can’t help it. I’ve never been with a man who speaks to me likethisbefore. A man who can weave words in a way that makes my head spin.
“Here you are!”
A small gasp escapes my mouth as the waiter reappears with our order. For one brief moment, I’d forgotten everything, including that we’re in my favorite restaurant and we’re in public.
I can't bear to meet Bran's gaze, so I concentrate on the waiter as he arranges our appetizers and takes our orders for the main course. He departs too swiftly.
“So,” Bran says. It takes courage to look back up at him when all I want is to run out of the restaurant. “I’m not sure you’ll ever believe anything I have to say, but I hope you’ll consider it. I hope you start to see I have fewer ulterior motives than you think I do.”
I open my mouth to deliver a cutting remark or something snippy. But my brain is blank. His words have wiped away my armory of disputes.
