He laughed. “‘Miserable.’ Very funny.”
I scowled, hurt by his declaration, humiliated by his amusement, on the verge of deeper, more intense emotions that I refused to reveal. I stood, ready to gather my things and leave.
“Sit down,” Reeve ordered, suddenly sober. He waited until I, reluctantly, did. “I meant, I won’t take you out yet. I don’t appear in public with women I’m seeing until I’ve been with them at least two months.”
“You don’t?” I was astonished as much as relieved.
“No. I don’t. No exceptions.”
I did the math in my head, calculating my own two-month graduation date. “So you won’t take me out in public until the end of March?”
His lip turned up, teasing. Challenging. “If you’re still around.”
“I will be.” My words were resolute.
“I kind of think you will.” He angled toward me and ran his hands up and down my bare thighs.
It was distracting, but not so distracting that I couldn’t ask, “Why the rule?”
“Lots of reasons. Mostly because, despite popular opinion, I don’t think that the media has any right to my private life. They can speculate all they’d like, but I’d rather give them as little to feed on as possible.”
There were actors and actresses I knew who felt the same, sneaking around the paparazzi for first dates and booty calls. It was completely reasonable for Reeve to adopt that sort of guideline for himself, even if having a set-in-stone probationary period was a bit inflexible.
Then I realized what that meant about getting to his other resorts, getting to Wyoming. My stomach sank. “And that’s why you won’t take me traveling yet either.”
“Correct.” He sounded almost sorry about it. “It’s also why we’ll only see each other on weekends until then. Weekdays are filled with business and promoting and since I work a lot from home, there’s no telling who’s going to be around here at any given time.”
Dammit.
Two months until I had any chance of getting where I needed to be most.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I scowled, wishing he weren’t touching me like he was. Wishing I had only my frustration to focus on. I gathered what I had of it up against him. “It would maybe have been useful to tell me some of this.”
“Why?”
The cocky glint in his eye irked me more. “Because then I would have known what to expect. It could have saved a lot of agitation on my part.” I pushed his hands off of me and swiveled so my knees were toward the island, away from him. Two months.
Dammit.
“You’re right,” Reeve said quietly at my side. “I should have told you.”
I turned my head slightly toward him, surprised by his admission of guilt. “Then why didn’t you?”
He looked like he wanted to turn me back to him, but he refrained. “Maybe I like seeing you agitated.”
Yes. I was sure that was true. “Maybe you’re just an asshole.” The damn man simply smiled.
Then his expression slid into something more serious. “Maybe I didn’t tell you because I hoped I could be a person who did make exceptions.” He let a beat fall by. “But I’m not.”
I knew what he was saying. Knew in my skin, in my bones, and while I didn’t know why he hoped he could be someone other than he was or what – or who – had driven him to that desire, I understood exactly what it was to want to change. To try to change. To find it impossible.
And I knew what it was to expect that the people around you could live with that.
My annoyance and resentment dulled into a mournful acceptance. I was committed to finding Amber, even if it took longer than I’d originally planned. Even if each step of the way I found more common ground with my adversary. Even if I discovered he wasn’t an adversary at all.
I let out a silent breath, determined to make sure he wasn’t leaving out any part of his no-exception rule. “What about the women you’re only seen in public with once?”
“Means I was with them for at least two months. Then when I took them out, they probably failed the night in public. Or I was just over them.”
“You’re so cavalier. Like I said, ‘asshole.’” But I was thinking about what else he’d said. “Failed the night in public.” So there were more unwritten rules I didn’t know about? Would there be other hurdles I didn’t expect?
He leaned toward me and whispered in my ear. “Stop worrying, Blue Eyes. I’m not going to throw you to the wolves. I’d rather be the one to devour you.”
That, I was also sure, was true. And I didn’t think he meant “devour” in just a sexual connotation, which made it even sexier that he’d said it. My body was already humming from before when he’d stroked my thighs, and now, though he’d sat back in his chair, his breath on my skin had left me heated. Even under everything else going on in my head, that always stayed constant – the simmer of arousal in my blood, stirred simply by his presence.
The discussion was over, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it die. “Are there women who never make it to the two-month mark?”
“Many. There are women who never make it past night one.”
But I had. And so had Amber. Plus all the women I’d seen him photographed with over the years. To think there’d been more.
I planted my elbow on the counter and propped my head up on my hand, pivoting to face him. “Huh.”
“‘Huh’? What does ‘huh’ mean?”