She laughed delightedly and he joined in.
“Worse things have been said about you,” she offered.
He nodded. “Yeah, that's true. Expect the worst and get pleasantly surprised.”
“Oh, is that your motto?”
“One of many,” he parried.
“And the others would be—?”
“Today's dreams are built on yesterday's reality.”
She cocked her head. “Hmm, never heard that one before.”
He motioned away with the glass in his hand. “Made it up.”
“Ah,” she sighed, “a closet philosopher.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The Victorian lady meets Machiavelli?”
“Is that who you are? The realist philosopher who thinks the worst of human nature?”
He leaned forward. “Every entrepreneur is partly Machiavellian. Comes with the territory. Don't let anyone tell you differently.”
“Meaning I'm just masquerading as a demure and proper Victorian lady?” she asked, guessing that Precious Bundles qualified her as an entrepreneur.
His gaze perused her and then he grinned unexpectedly. “No,” he rejoined, “that's just one side of you. Another is the bottom-line businesswoman. Otherwise, when I offered you my deal, you'd have slapped my face and cut me dead.”
He was dissecting her unerringly. “Perhaps I've just decided to play along.”
He shook his head. “Nope. You play for keeps.”
A shiver went down her back. Playing for keeps was exactly what they were doing, and the stakes were never greater.
Five
When they arrived back at her place, she invited him in for tea, and, after a brief pause, he made a sound that seemed like a yes and followed her in.
Inviting him in was the most nonchalant move. She was desperate to have him think she was able to handle their dates with cool aplomb.
She thought of his past dates. How had she compared? She'd done her best tonight to fit his type. She looked down at her dress as she poured water into her floral tea kettle. The dress had been an impulse buy yesterday. Afterwards, she'd stopped in at Louise's Spa and Salon for a matching naughty red pedicure.
Yes, she looked a little vampy. And it had required every inch of nerve she possessed to try to pull off that look tonight.
She'd wanted to attract Quentin of course. But another part of her had also wanted to shock him—make him see her as a bold, daring woman who was comfortable with her sex appeal. She'd been pleased when she'd opened her front door to him tonight and seen his eyes widen.
She set the kettle to boil and started arranging some of her homemade pecan chocolate chip cookies on a platter. She always baked when she was nervous, as she had been before their date this afternoon.
Now if only she could pull off the rest of the evening without making a cake of herself. She looked down at the platter. Too bad she hadn't thought of baking a cake instead to guard against that urge.
When she came back into the living room with her laden tea tray, Quentin was fingering the lace tablecloth covering one of her end tables. “Antique?”
“My mother's,” she said as she set down her tray on the coffee table. “It's a McConnell family heirloom. Just like most of the antiques I own.”
He sat down on the hump-backed sofa beside her. Liz was grateful the sofa was firm and straight-backed, in the Victorian style. Anything else would have made sitting within a hair's breadth of Quentin unbelievably intimate.
“Tell me about your mother.”
“There's not much to tell.” She sighed. “She died when I was eight. She had an inoperable tumor.”
“I'm sorry,” he said deeply.
The look in his eyes was one she'd never received before: sympathy mixed with respect. “I have some memories of her. Sometimes when I see gardenias I'll remember her flower arrangements, or when I smell split pea soup, I'll remember her cooking dinner.”
“How old was she when she died?”
“Only twenty-nine.”
“The same age you are now.”
He'd obviously drawn conclusions about the connection between her mother's death and her own need and desire to have a child as soon as possible. “Yes, but I'm going to win my battle.”
He nodded. “Growing up without a mother can't have been any fun, but you succeeded anyway.”
She cleared her throat and looked away quickly. Compliments were not something she accepted comfortably. “Th-thank you,” she managed.
She was, Quentin thought, a delicate flower with a strong stem. Her straight back and thrust-back shoulders would have impressed the finest etiquette teacher. The clean lines of her oval face were full of delicacy and strength at the same time.
When she'd invited him in, he'd hesitated. The two of them alone in her house would present a temptation that was hard to resist.
But he'd figured she'd just misinterpret him if he declined her polite offer of tea, just as she'd obviously misinterpreted his abruptness when he'd picked her up at the beginning of the evening.
When the truth was the woman was bringing him to a slow boil. All that fire covered by a cool veneer was enough to drive any guy crazy. Especially one with a newly discovered taste for a chestnut-haired interior designer with a honeyed voice and a peaches-and-cream complexion.
A heaviness settled beneath his belt. Damn. He cleared his throat. “Tea looks good. Going to pour us some?”
“Oh, yes.” She was embarrassed to discover she'd forgotten to serve the tea.
Great, Liz. She chalked up another strike against the cool and sophisticated image she'd wanted to project tonight.
She brushed his knee as she poured tea, and tried to ignore the quiver that went through her. She determinedly picked up a cookie. If she was going to be sinful, better that it be with food.
She went still as Quentin picked up a strand of her hair, eyed it idly, and then proceeded to twist the end of it around his finger.
“Cookie?” she offered.
He chuckled. “Sure.” He paused. “I seem to have my hands full—” he nodded at the hand that still had hold of her long hair “—so why don't you feed it to me?”
“I, umm….”
“Here, I'll give you a hand,” he said, then bent forward to take a healthy bite out of the cookie still in her paralyzed hand.
Oh, my. She felt nervous and languorous at once. How was that possible?
He bent forward for another bite and took the remainder of the cookie out of her hand.
“I hope you like pecan chocolate chip,” she said inanely.
He swallowed. “I do. I hope you do, too.”