Of course, she did. She couldn’t take that step right now, though. Not without bringing the hell of Odessa’s wrath down upon herself.
“It’s not my nature to be obstructive,” she told Leander as the doors closed them into the elevator. “A lifetime of being around domineering men has taught me to pick my battles so I’ll go to lunch if you insist, but I won’t marry someone who is already demonstrating he wants to control my life.”
“It’s lunch,” he said pithily. “Where we will negotiate the fine points of your taking complete control your company. If yours is anything like mine, it is the bulk of your life. Surely that’s worth skipping a marketing presentation or whatever you had on.”
She wished he would quit dangling the prospect of sole proprietorship. It was a very tasty carrot. The shareholders Leander had recently bought out had been mostly reasonable, but Midas occasionally flexed his influence, backing her into a corner for his own enjoyment. She would love to be free of that.
She would love to be free of Midas. Love it.
“You moved your ring,” Leander noted.
“Pardon?” She followed his gaze to her right hand where she had reflexively clasped the rail as the elevator plummeted. “Oh.” Should she tell him? What would he do with the information? Steal her ring? It wasn’t particularly expensive and there was no real way he could weaponize this quirk of hers. “I move it when I want to remember something.”
“Such as?” Suspicion narrowed his gaze.
“Picking up my dry cleaning.” She lifted a shoulder in an absent shrug. “In this case, I want to remember to look up something when I get home.” Clay deposits on Paxos. “I use this ring because it’s a coil. I can shrink or expand it for different fingers. If I have more than one thing to remember, I wear it on this finger.” She pointed to her index finger. “If it’s on this thumb, it’s an event I can’t miss. If I put it on that one, it’s travel.”
“Foolish me, paying for an assistant,” he said dryly. “So anytime I want to clear your schedule, I can just take that ring?”
“You can try,” she shot back, and saw immediately what a mistake it was to challenge him, even mockingly.
Excitement for a wrestle flared in his eyes.
At that exact moment, the elevator dipped below the lobby into an underground parking garage. The glass walls became solid concrete. The lighting changed from bright sunshine to subdued gold, closeting them in intimacy.
The elevator stopped and Leander swayed onto his toes.
He was going to kiss her.
All of her...softened. Her clasp on the rail tightened and her gaze dropped to his mouth. She stood very still, waiting. Wondering. Wanting...