I wanted to trust Daniel, though. I wanted to believe that he knew what he was doing. And I wanted him. Whatever way I could have him. Even if it ended up hurting when he finally told me that he was no longer interested in me.
So I grinned up at him, feeling that flickering warmth still there in my core. “I thought you’d never ask,” I told him, and when he grinned right back at me, I felt as though I had won some sort of prize.
Chapter 17
Daniel
“THIS IS WEIRD,” AUSTIN announced on Wednesday night as we were getting drinks. I looked around the bar, trying to figure out what he was talking about. It was hardly the first time we had gotten beers here on what many would consider to be an off night. Sure, there weren’t too many people in the place, but that was what I liked about it. It meant I didn’t have to worry so much about the paparazzi. They didn’t really care for places like this; they’d much rather catch me in compromising positions like dancing in clubs.
It seemed like any other night to me. I frowned at Austin. “What’s weird?” I asked.
“You,” he said, shrugging. “I think this is the first
time I’ve ever had your undivided attention on a night out. And you’ve been doing it the whole night.”
I couldn’t let him know how embarrassed that made me feel. “You make it sound like I’m a terrible friend,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Austin protested, holding up both hands before I could say anything else. “I just mean, it’s weird that you’re not making eyes at that redhead at the far end of the bar. She’s been trying to catch your eye for half the night.”
“I noticed,” I said drily. But I didn’t explain to him why I wasn’t interested in her over-the-top ways of trying to get me to notice her. She had even dropped a glass on the ground, acting like she was such a klutz. The bartender had been all over her. But I knew from the way she had glanced over at me both before and after that it was no accident.
I wasn’t interested. Sure, she was beautiful, and I could tell that she was willing. It would have been easy as anything to get her to go home with me at the end of the night.
But that just wasn’t what I wanted. It didn’t interest me that night. Maybe I’d just had too much random sex with too many random people lately. Or maybe it was Abby.
I still couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her, and every desperate attempt to grab my attention that this redhead did only made me think of her more. I was comparing and contrasting them in my head, and Abby was the clear winner of the unofficial and unwarranted competition. She was never so heavy-handed in her attempts to flirt with me.
In fact, the previous day, when I’d started flirting with her, telling her that I could kiss her better? What ensued was just perfect. Natural. Comfortable. And somehow still sexier than any other flirting I’d been engaged with in my whole life.
There was just something about her. I still couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but I didn’t want to go home with this random redhead, not when things were actually, somehow, almost working out with Abby.
I was taking her on a date on Friday, and I still could barely believe it.
I hadn’t really intended to ask her out. And I’d been sure that she would tell me no. But I had asked, the words slipping easily out of my mouth, and she had said yes. Now, I had to figure out just where to take her. I didn’t particularly want to take her somewhere where the paparazzi might find us. For the first time, it wasn’t because I didn’t want the paparazzi thinking that it was something more than it was. And it also, surprisingly, had nothing to do with the fact that she was my employee and that information might get out if we were seen together in public, at dinner, alone.
No, I just didn’t want Abby to feel the pressure of dating me. I wanted things to be all fun and no stress. So I needed to figure out the perfect place. In the past, I would have asked Gerrard, but obviously I couldn’t do that now.
“Whoa, there you go,” Austin said, shaking his head, and I realized that whatever he had said, I had totally ignored it. He grinned slyly at me. “But if you’re not interested in the redhead over there, then there must be someone else making you space out like that?”
I sighed but knew that there was no lying to him. No point in lying to him either. Maybe he could help me figure out the best place to take her on a date.
“You remember me mentioning my new advisor? Abby?” I asked him.
Austin snapped his fingers. “I saw this coming a mile away,” he said. Then, he paused. “Are you serious about this girl, or is it just an office fling?”
I gave him a look. “When have I ever been the kind of guy to have office flings?” I asked.
“You aren’t,” Austin said immediately. “But you’re also not the dating kind of guy either. So I’m just wondering what you’re really doing with her.”
“Fair enough.” I sighed. “And honestly, I don’t really know. It’s too early to tell. I’m taking her to dinner on Friday night, I guess, but I didn’t even expect her to say yes to that.”
“Wow,” Austin said, sounding impressed.
“There’s just something different about her,” I continued, thinking back to that kiss we’d shared. I’d kissed a lot of girls in my life, but none of them had been quite like Abby. She hadn’t been meek and docile, and she hadn’t left everything up to me. I had been able to feel just how much she wanted it, in ways I couldn’t describe. It was as though she’d been waiting for me to do that.
But she had pulled away looking just as surprised as I had felt.
I shook my head. “She’s smart as a whip,” I told Austin. “And she’s funny as hell. And she keeps me on my toes, and she challenges me. I like working with her, and she gets along with everyone at the company too. Plus, she’s good at what she does. So far, all of her advice has been sound. She’s helped me make good decisions for the business, and I can see things working out well.”