Matched to Her Rival

“Don’t freak out but I do believe you’re enjoying this after all.”

Her smile slipped but she didn’t look away. This might not be a date, but he couldn’t deny that lunch with Elise was the most interesting experience he’d had with a woman, period. Even ones he was dating.

The longer this went on, the harder it was going to be to denounce her publicly. She was good—much better than he’d prepared for—and to criticize her abilities would likely reflect just as poorly on him as it did her.

Worse, he was afraid he’d started to like her. He should probably do something about that before she got too far under his skin.

* * *

By one o’clock, Elise’s side hurt from laughing. Wine at lunch should be banned. Or required. She couldn’t decide which.

“I have to get back to the office,” she said reluctantly.

Reluctantly? She had a ton of things to do. And this was lunch with Dax. Whom she hated...or rather didn’t like very much. Actually, he was pretty funny and maybe a little charming. Of course he was—he had lots of practice wooing women.

Dax made a face. “Yeah. Duty calls.”

He stood and gallantly took her hand, while simultaneously pulling her chair away. It was amazingly well-coordinated. Probably because he’d done it a million times.

They strolled to the car and she pretended that she didn’t notice how slowly, and she didn’t immediately fish her keys from her bag. Dax put his palm on the driver’s-side door, leaning against it casually, so she couldn’t have opened it anyway. Deliberately on his part, she was sure.

She should call him on it.

“Tomorrow, then?” he asked.

Elise shook her head. “I’m out of the office tomorrow. I have a thing with my mother.”

Brenna had an appointment with a plastic surgeon in Dallas because the ones in L.A. stopped living up to her expectations. Apparently she couldn’t find one who could make her look thirty again.

“All day?” Dax seemed disappointed. “You can’t squeeze in an hour for me?”

No way was he disappointed. She shook her head. The wine was affecting her more than she’d thought.

“I have to pick her up from the airport and then take her to the doctor.” Oh, that might have been too much information. “I need to ask for your discretion. She wouldn’t like it if she knew I was talking to others about her private affairs.”

“Because your mother is famous or something?”

Elise heaved a sigh. “I assumed you checked up on me and therefore already knew I was Brenna Burke’s daughter. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Stupid wine.

“Brenna Burke is your mother?” Dax whistled. “I had a poster of her above my bed when I was a teenager. The one where she wore the bikini made of leaves. Good times.”

“Thanks, I needed the image in my head of you fantasizing about my mother.” That’s precisely why she never mentioned Brenna. Not only because of the ick factor, but also because no one ever whistled over Elise. It was demoralizing. “You know she was thirty-five in that photo, right?”

Elise called it her mother’s I’m-not-old stage, when the hot runway models were closer to her nine-year-old daughter’s age than Brenna’s, and the offers of work had all but dried up.

I should have waited to have kids, Brenna had told her. Mistake Number One talked me into it. Being pregnant and off the circuit ruined me.

Bitter, aging supermodels took out their frustration on those around them, including Elise’s father, dubbed Mistake Number One when he grew tired of Brenna’s attitude and left. Adult Elise knew all this from her psychology classes. Still hurt, even years later.

“So?” Dax sighed lustily. “I didn’t care. She was smoking hot.”

“Yeah. So I’ve been told.” She feigned sudden interest in her manicure, unable to take the appreciation for her mother in Dax’s expression.

“Elise.” His voice held a note of...warmth. Compassion.

Somehow, he’d steered her around, spine against the car, and then he was right there, sandwiching her between his masculine presence and the Vette.

He tipped her head up with a fist and locked those smoky irises on hers and she couldn’t breathe. “Tastes change. I like to think I’ve evolved since I was fourteen. Older women aren’t so appealing anymore.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. It hardly matters.”

“It does.” The screeches and hums of the parking lot and chatter of other diners faded away as he cocked his head and focused on her. “I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”