She thought of her successful interview with Tilman Steel a few days before. Then her mind drifted to a handful of interviews she had lined up with the kind of Fortune 500 companies that could offer her the future her family had stolen. When the elevator doors opened, her hope and excitement for life had been bolstered. Isaac had made her transition bearable, and he’d taught her a lot about herself in the process.
She stepped out and found him pacing the lobby. Ava had seen many men in tuxes over the years, but she had to admit, she hadn’t expected Isaac to wear one so well. It took more than a good body to give a tux real sophistication, it took practice. Not only did Isaac look absolutely mouthwatering, he also looked comfortable.
“Jesus.” His breathless voice pulled Ava from her thoughts. “You look gorgeous.”
She laughed and walked into his arms. “Handsome, you give that tux authentic swagger. Not many men can pull that off.”
He kissed her. “Ready?”
When she nodded, he took her hand and led her outside. A shiny black town car waited at the curb. Ava’s brows pulled together, and she glanced from the town car to Isaac and back to the car. A driver came around and opened the rear door.
All his past teases over her wealth flooded into her mind, and with them, guilt weighted her chest. “Isaac, you didn’t have to do this. I would have been just as comfortable on your bike.”
“You’re too gorgeous to be on the back of a bike, and parking’s always a bitch in the city.” He walked her to the car and gestured her inside. “Besides, I wanted to give you all my attention.”
Ava slid into the car with a strange feeling she couldn’t pin down. Something uneasy. A clash between the rich world she’d been battling and the simple world she’d enjoyed with Isaac.
Once settled into the car, Isaac wrapped her in his arms and kissed her. In that moment, she fell back into the warmth of their unique rhythm. But as soon as he pulled back and smiled down at her, Ava’s worlds collided again.
She slid her hands down his chest. “You look like you were born to wear a tux.”
“My parents would like to think so. Me, not so much.”
Family money? He’d never told her about it. Considering that money, family, and family money had all been common threads in their conversations, the fact that he’d neglected to mention his family’s financial status felt significant to Ava—and not in a good way.
She suddenly regretted agreeing to come. Ava didn’t want to be dragged into a life of money and expectations and judgments again. And she sure as hell didn’t want to see how pomp and circumstance changed the Isaac she knew.
“How long do we need to stay tonight?” She slipped her hand beneath his jacket and stroked his crisp white shirt. “Or, in other words, how fast can I get you out of this fancy suit and back into your worn jeans?”
The joy in his eyes slipped a little. “Still only interested in a dirty biker, huh?”
Unease pricked her chest. “Is it my imagination, or are you overly sensitive about that topic?”
He exhaled and looked out the window.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she told him. “The car, the tux, the fancy dinner, it’s fabulous. And it means a lot to me that you asked me to come. I just want you to know the money doesn’t matter to me.”
“Well, that’s good,” he said, turning back to her with an apprehensive look in his eye. “Because we’re here.”
Ava glanced out the window as the car turned into a roundabout. “That wasn’t more than a ten-minute drive.”
Before she could ask why they couldn’t have taken an Uber or walked, he slid toward the opposite side of the car. “I’ll get your door.”
He got out and rounded the back. Ava watched him with a growing weight in her stomach. Something wasn’t right. Maybe she really was only interested in the dirty biker, because suddenly, she wanted to be anywhere but here.
He opened her door and offered his hand. The gesture sparked something inside her, lighting fire to a fuse she feared led to a keg of dynamite. She’d been around wealth all her life, but it was the first time she’d ever seen Isaac in that setting, and he was clearly used to the protocols—the tux, the car, the gestures, the manners.
Memories from their time together clicked through her head in milliseconds—the moment he’d stepped into Grind and her antennae locked on to him, the cleanliness of his garage, his expectations of a receptionist, MIT, the piano.
She took his hand and stood from the car while forcing herself to shed her negative associations with wealth. So what if his family had money? He was as much a self-made man as she was a self-made woman. She could deal with that.
What she couldn’t deal with—wouldn’t deal with—was more deception.
After he closed the door, she faced him and met his eyes deliberately. “Isaac, what’s going on?”
He lifted a strand of hair out of her eyes with one finger and smiled. But his expression… He looked different. A little nervous. A little edgy. “I told you, it’s just a work dinner for my dad. I promise, we won’t stay long.”
He walked her around the car and toward the building. No, not a building, a skyscraper. A skyscraper with a wide, curved face and a tower rising from the center. She slowed, looking around for landmarks to cement her location. “Is this the Mandarin?”