‘I overestimated the strength of my will power because I can’t stop thinking about you. That night. The things we did.’ He stopped. Tilted his head and held her gaze. ‘Has it crossed your mind even once?’
She looked at him steadily, her eyes clear and unguarded, and after a beat said, ‘It’s on my mind pretty much constantly.’
At her admission his brain reeled, his pulse raced and his one overriding thought was that as soon as they were done here he was taking her home and keeping her there until the desire and the tension had gone.
Until she added, ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m planning to do anything about it,’ and he reeled a bit more, the disappointment slamming through him sudden and excoriating.
‘What?’ he asked, his voice rough.
‘You know I don’t mix business and pleasure.’
‘Why not?’
‘Experience.’
‘What happened?’
‘I once had a client who thought that sleeping with me entitled him to a one-hundred-per-cent discount. When I said no, that was it. No more client, but four months of bad-mouthing that meant no work for me until it fizzled out and everyone moved on.’
‘I won’t ask you for a discount.’
She eyed him coolly. ‘You won’t get the chance.’
‘You want me.’
‘Maybe I do, but I can resist.’
‘Liaise with Jake instead of me over this party and you don’t have to.’
‘It’s still your name on the contract.’
‘A technicality.’
‘But a crucial one.’
She was stubborn, and while half of him admired her for it, the other half damned it to hell. ‘Is there anything I can say to change your mind?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘You’re really not going to budge?’
‘Not even a millimetre.’
He took in the set of her jaw, the challenge in her eyes and realised that this wasn’t a battle he’d be winning. Not here and now, at least.
And that was fine because now he knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her he could wait. He only had to hold out a few more weeks and he could easily manage that. In the meantime he’d perhaps spend the weeks wearing down her resistance so that by the time the party was over she’d be begging for him to take her to bed, and his track record of avoiding rejection would once again be blemish-free.
‘OK,’ he said with a casual shrug and an even more casual smile that gave away nothing of his thoughts. ‘Then I’d better get the bill.’
* * *
The ease with which Leo had let the whole business/pleasure thing go had been surprising, but as Abby prepared for bed later that night she certainly wasn’t complaining. He’d never know how close she’d come to giving in. How tempted she’d been to hurl aside the table and launch herself at him and to hell with the principle that had helped keep her and her business on the straight and narrow.
So much for thinking that everything was fine. She should have known that things would implode. She should have been prepared for it.
But really, how could she have been? She’d never ever have imagined that Leo-tighter-than-a-clam-Cartwright would have actually put what he was thinking into words. Even once he had, she’d struggled to believe what she was hearing.
He’d badly rocked her resolve. He’d certainly rocked her thought processes because maybe she shouldn’t have told him that she thought about him and that night all the time. Maybe it would have been better to deny it and pretend that the chemistry that arced between them wasn’t an issue.