“Here? At my house?” Bad, bad idea. “You want to do the profile session on a Saturday night?”
Didn’t he have a new woman lined up already? Candy hadn’t worked out, but a man like Dax surely wouldn’t wait around for Elise to find him some action. Saturday night equaled hot date, didn’t it?
“I don’t think you fully appreciated the point I made about getting to know me best while on a date.” With a flourish, he pulled something from behind his back. A DVD she didn’t recognize. “So we’re going to watch a movie.”
“The profile session is going to be a date?” She was his hot date. How in the world had she not seen this coming?
It was straight out of Psych 101—to get the cheese, she had to complete the maze. But why? What was his motivation for forcing her to navigate a date in the first place?
“More of a compromise,” he allowed with a nod. “This is not anything close to what I’ve ever done on a date. But the setting is innocuous and we can both relax. I don’t feel like you’re grilling me, you don’t feel like it’s work.”
That sounded remarkably like the excuse he’d used to get her to go to lunch, which had proved to be rather effective, in retrospect. “What if I’m busy?”
“Cancel your plans. You want to know what makes me tick?” His eyebrows lifted in invitation. “I’m offering you a shot. Watch the movie. Drink some wine. If you do that for me, I’ll answer any question you ask honestly.”
Dax gestured with his other hand, which clutched a bottle of cabernet sporting a label she’d only ever seen behind glass at a pricey restaurant.
She shook her head. “This is a thinly veiled attempt to seduce me again.”
The sizzling once-over he treated her to should not have curled her toes. Of course, if he’d given her a warning before he showed up, she could have put on shoes.
“I’m not trying to tilt the scales by coming on to you,” he insisted. “Trust me, if I wanted you naked, this is not how I would go about it.”
As she well knew his seduction routine, she opted to keep her mouth shut. For once.
“I, Daxton Wakefield, will not touch you one single time this whole evening.” He marked the statement by crossing his heart solemnly with the DVD case. “Unless you ask me to.”
“You’re safe on that front. Not that I’m agreeing to this, but what did you bring?” She nodded at the movie against her better judgment.
He shrugged. “An advanced screening copy of Stardate 2215. It’s that big-budget sci-fi flick coming out Christmas day.”
She eyed him. “That’s not in theaters yet. How did you get a copy?”
“I have friends in low places.” He grinned mischievously. “One of the benefits of being in the media business. I called in a few favors. You like sci-fi and I wanted to pick something I knew you hadn’t seen.”
Speechless, she held on to the door so she didn’t end up in a heap at his feet. She’d never told him what kind of movies she liked, but somehow he’d figured it out, and then went to great lengths to get one. Her heart knocked up against her principles and it was not cool.
Not a seduction, my foot.
But she really wanted to see that movie. And she really wanted to get Dax Wakefield matched to someone else so she could stop thinking about kissing him.
“Truce?” He held out the DVD and the wine with a conciliatory smile and he looked so freaking gorgeous in his $400 jeans and long-sleeved V-neck, she wanted to lap him up like whipped cream.
If that bit of absurdity didn’t decide against this idea for her, nothing would.
“I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“Jeez, Elise.” He huffed out a noise of disgust. “You’re the most difficult woman to not have a date with in the entire United States. Order a pizza. Order twelve. You may have free rein with my credit card if that’s what it takes to get me over your threshold.”
“Why are you so dead-set on this? Honestly.”
He dropped his arms, wine and DVD falling to his sides. “Believe it or not, this is me leveling the field. You deserve a genuine chance at doing your thing with the questions and the algorithm. This is an atmosphere conducive to giving you that.”
Sincerity laced his words, but to clarify, she said, “Because you don’t like my office.”
Something flitted through his expression and whatever it was scared her a great deal more than the kiss. “Because I have an extremely full week ahead and daylight hours are scarce. I want to give you my undivided attention, without watching the clock.”