“Is poor André brokenhearted?” Mara asked with a giggle.
“But that's the best part, darling. Quentin is a workaholic bore, but that leaves me plenty of time to continue to recreate with darling André.”
His face had drained of color. The portals to his heart had slammed shut at that instant, and he'd padlocked them for good measure.
The ironic thing was, now even work had ceased to matter as much. And wouldn't Vanessa get a kick out of knowing that?
Sure he still worked damn hard. He just wasn't as driven as he used to be. That fire-in-the-belly, ruthless, single-minded determination to succeed had started to fail him. If ambition were a fire, he'd gone from being a coal-burning furnace to a gas fireplace: all the blaze, but no real heat.
At thirty-six, he realized he wasn't getting any younger. A few months back, one of his chief competitors had up and died at the office from a heart attack. The guy had burned out at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. Since then, he'd caught himself being pensive at odd moments.
So maybe it was time for new challenges. And Elizabeth was that, he thought. She'd demanded a lot, more than he was willing to give. But he'd hit on a plan that would suit them both. A brief period of dating and if all went well, a marriage built on practical considerations.
He'd have her, and the kid he'd almost given up on after Vanessa had cured him of that love-and-marriage garbage. Elizabeth would get her baby and peace of mind.
It was perfect. Brilliant. And he was going to make damn sure he wrung every second of satisfaction out of it.
Starting right now.
The minute she opened her door, he saw red. Deep, rich wine red. On a dress that hugged her curves in a warm embrace. With a halter-top that exposed her creamy shoulders and graceful neck.
He cleared his throat. “Here.” He handed the flowers to her. “For you.”
“Th-thank you.” She bent her head to sniff the fragrance of roses mixed with lilies.
He followed her into the house. “You're welcome.”
“Lilies are my favorite.”
“They match the color of your dress.” Great line, Whittaker.
“Make yourself comfortable. I'm just going to put these in water before we go,” she called over her shoulder.
He'd watched her sashay to the kitchen. If anything, the back view of her in that slinky dress was even more arresting than the front one.
She came back with the flowers arranged in a glass vase that she set on an end table. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No. Let's get going.” He sounded more brusque than he'd intended, and she looked taken aback.
The truth was he didn't trust himself in the house with her. Her toenails, he'd noticed, were painted a deep red and peeked out from strappy, high-heeled sandals. The effect was unbelievably erotic.
After she'd gathered a black sequined purse that he swore could hold no more than a set of keys, and a fringed shawl, he followed her out the door.
Casa Vittoria was a quarter of an hour away on a road he knew well, so they reached the restaurant in what seemed like record time.
They were seated at one of the best tables in the house and Quentin made a mental note to thank his secretary Celine for seeing to it. Immediately a waiter appeared to offer them menus and the wine list, while another filled their water glasses. The first waiter recited the specials of the day in accented English.
Quentin looked up in surprise from the wine list when he heard Elizabeth ask a few questions in seemingly flawless Italian. When the waiters had departed, he asked, “Where did you learn Italian?”
A smile touched Elizabeth's lips. “College. I minored in Romance languages. After my mother died, Dad and I vacationed abroad a lot. I guess it was his way of trying to compensate for my mother being gone. By the time I got to college, I loved French, Italian, Spanish.” She'd been turning the stem of her water glass as she spoke and now groped to steady it as it almost tipped over.
Ah, Quentin thought with satisfaction, at least she felt a little of the tension he'd been feeling since he'd first laid eyes on her this evening. Emboldened, he reached out and removed her hand from the glass to trace slow circles on the back of her palm. “Careful,” he murmured.
The soothing motion of his index finger on her hand sent a languid warmth through Liz, even as she felt caught and trapped by Quentin's intense gaze. His eyes had turned a deep slate-gray and she wondered idly if she'd ever seen that shade before.
Only the arrival of the waiter to inquire about their wine selection saved her. She quickly withdrew her hand and tried to steady her breath, thankful that Quentin had been distracted.
“I thought I'd order a Chardonnay,” Quentin said with a telltale twinkle in his eye, and Liz realized he was teasing her about her partiality to the wine.
“Mmm, that would be wonderful.” She took a sip from her water glass as Quentin ordered an old vintage. Seeking a neutral topic, she said, “Allison says you've been very busy lately.”
She hadn't said a word to Allison about her “dates” with Quentin. It would get Ally's hopes up prematurely.
Quentin sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Yup. I'll be traveling most of next week.”
“You don't seem happy.”
He gave her a tired grin and for the first time she noticed he looked a little peaked. “Living out of a suitcase is never fun.”
“But you have to do a lot of it.”
He nodded. “More than I'd like. The computer world is a mile a minute. And a lot of our business partners are based in California. What about you?”
“Most of my clients are based in Massachusetts. There's a fair amount of travel, but it's local.”
The waiter returned to take their order and when he departed again, Quentin asked, “Have you thought about how you're going to handle that when you've got a kid?”
The directness of the question threw her, and she looked at him startled. He shrugged. “It's come up at work. We have part-time, flex-time and work-at-home arrangements for our employees.”
“That's admirable.”
His lips quirked in that telltale way she associated with his sardonic half smiles. “The truth is that if I hadn't thought it was good company policy, my mother and Allison would have had my hide.”
She tried not to laugh. “I'm sure your employees thank you.”
He arched a brow. “Actually the biggest dividend was getting on the cover of Parent-Child magazine over the caption 'Trailblazing Cutey-Pie CEO Is Big Hit with Both Wall Street and Sesame Street Crowds.”'