I shrug.
He sighs.
I grin.
He grimaces and picks up his fork again.
Laughing, I slice my knife through a piece of chicken. “I want to give you my input. Honestly. I just … I don’t know how I use my space. It’s a weird question.”
“Do you entertain a lot?” he asks.
“That would require people in my house, so no.”
He seems amused by this as he takes a bite of his sandwich.
“I don’t love people in my personal space,” I say. “I don’t hate them. I’m definitely a lover. I—”
He coughs, covering his mouth with a napkin as he regains his breath. Once his airway is cleared, he takes a quick sip of his water.
“You okay?” I ask. “I was ready to give you mouth-to-mouth.”
“I’m fine.” He coughs again, clearing his throat. “You were saying …”
I think back to what we were talking about. “Oh. Yes. I was saying that I don’t entertain a lot besides my friend Rusti. Cleo’s mom.”
“What about family dinners? Holidays? That kind of thing?”
I lift the piece of chicken to my mouth and then chew it slowly. He watches me carefully, reading between the lines I’m trying to blur.
Once I’ve chewed, swallowed, and had a drink, I look at him again. The glimmer in his eye is still his trademark cool, but there’s a hint of something else—something warm or concerned or maybe just curious, that eases some of the tension in my body.
“I don’t really have any family,” I say.
“What about your grandfather?”
Of course. I sit back in my seat and try to figure out how to handle this sticky situation.
“Well, do you really think Curt Bowery is going to be having dinner at my house when he has a however-many million-dollar home of his own on the water?” I ask, relieved that I came up with such a brilliant, honest reply.
“Fair enough,” Wade says, his tone displaying a hint that he didn’t totally buy what I just tried to sell him.
“What about you? Do you host family dinners and holidays?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Oh, come on,” I say, picking up a fry. “Humor me.”
He flashes me a disapproving look before taking another bite of his sandwich.
“That’s not going to keep me from expecting an answer,” I tell him, wagging a fry in his direction. “You’re the one who said this was a personal process.”
He gives me a look. “I also said you need to trust me.”
“How can I trust someone I don’t know?”
“People do it all the time,” he says, flagging down the server for a refill. “I think I need to see the site you’re considering.”
I nod.
“Do you know where it is?” he asks.
“You head west to the place where that log cabin sits by the side of the road with the copper-colored metal roof. Do you know where I mean?”
He slow blinks. Twice.
“Well, you turn there and go … a while, and then there’s a barn with an old, faded tobacco ad on the side. And then—”
“Are you serious?”
I bite the end off a fry. “Does it look like it?”
He shakes his head. “Just …” He grabs his phone and swipes around for a minute before looking back at me. When he does, his eyes are narrowed slightly. “Can you meet me sometime tomorrow, and we can go look at it?”
My mouth goes dry. It’s not necessarily because of the way he’s looking at me—although that plays a part in it. But it’s mostly because of the heat and intention in his tone.
I shiver. “I have a photo shoot in the afternoon.”
“What about nine tomorrow morning?” he asks. “Can you be at my office then? We can drive over together, or I can follow you.”
“Sure.”
He holds my gaze for a moment longer and then goes back to his phone. It rings while it’s in his hand.
“Hello?” he says. “Yes. Shit. Okay. I’m sorry, Eliza. Can you tell them I’ll meet them there in twenty?” He runs a hand over his forehead. “Perfect. Thank you.”
I bite my lip to hold back a grin.
“What?” he asks as he puts his phone in his pocket.
“Twenty minutes is ten too long,” I joke. “Seems like you’re going to be late.”
He flashes me a look. “I’m never late.”
“Not what it sounds like.”
He sighs and takes out a credit card. “We’ve been trying to get an inspector on a jobsite for a month now and he just showed up. This is typically none of my concern, but I might have to tweak a couple of things depending on what he says. So … I need to go.”
“I figured. It’s fine. I’m going to see you in the morning anyway, right?”
He calls the server over and then hands her his card without looking away from me. His stare is intense … potent, even.
I have no idea what he’s thinking, but I can feel it in every cell in my body.