Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Jace
I nearly choke on the bite of steak I just shoved in my mouth.
“What?” I rasp.
She looks so damned proud of herself as she daintily eats her risotto. “You heard me.”
“Why do you think I have secrets?”
“Men like you always do.”
I frown, take a glug of my wine—which is good enough that, for a moment, I don’t want to throttle Dean. Then I focus on the troublesome woman sitting across from me. “Men like me?”
“Rich. Powerful. Determined to get what they want.”
She’s not wrong on those fronts.
“Determined to get what I want doesn’t always mean that I do get what I want,” I hedge.
“Does it?” she asks archly, scooping up some rice. “Does it really?”
I laugh softly. “Yes, cookie. It means that sometimes I don’t get what I want—especially when it’s waking up next to a certain gorgeous brunette.”
“Even when you could have any gorgeous brunette you want?”
“Not true.” I nod at her fork when it continues to hover, and she’s not eating her food. “And there’s a particular brunette that I’m in to.”
“Because she’s a challenge?”
I nod again and this time it makes it into her mouth, and she chews and swallows as I say, “Because she’s smart and funny and a hard worker. Because she’s clearly been hurt before and that’s left her gushy, but she’s still out in the world, living her life?—”
Something crosses her face but she doesn’t speak, just takes another bite of food.
So, I go on, “Because she reads smutty books and watches trashy TV shows but is incredibly good at her job because Jean-Michel doesn’t work with people who aren’t, especially if they don’t like hockey.”
She grins. “It’s not that I don’t like hockey.”
“No?”
“It’s that there are so many better things to watch.” One slender, bared shoulder lifts and drops. “Unless there are really good snacks.”
I chuckle. “You get me those playoff tickets and I’ll definitely up my snack game.”
A giggle that makes me feel a hundred feet tall. “You’re on.”
“You know that means you just agreed to a second date.”
“I know you didn’t answer my question.”
“About my deepest darkest secret?”
She taps her nose. “Got it in one.”
I cut off another piece of meat, but I don’t eat it, not yet, not when there’s part of me that wants to share. Because she’s asking. Because she wants to know the answer. Because it might mean that she’ll share some of the same with me. “I don’t know if I’d call it my deepest darkest secret—I’m pretty much an open book?—”
She snorts.
“No?”
“Come on,” she says. “You’re… you . The elusive Jace Henderson, billionaire by the time you were twenty-nine, perpetual bachelor who takes on health insurance companies and government officials alike.”
“That’s probably why my patent application was denied,” I mutter.
She frowns. “For the blood clot removal product you’re testing?”
“You know about that?”
Titan Capital and Genen-core collaborate in the loosest of terms—Titan Capital provides the silent capital for the producer of one of the microchips in our product—but that’s not under Marie’s purview.
Or maybe…I misjudged how much she actually does.
Or maybe not, I realize when I see the edgy look creep onto her face. “What?” I ask.
Surprisingly, she answers, “I may or may not have done some research on you when I found out you lived down the hall.”
“She likes me, folks,” I tease. “I think she really likes me.”
She keeps going. “And anyway, so I read up on Genen-core.” A shrug. “What you’re doing is pretty cool.” One half of her mouth tips up. “And it’s even cooler that Titan Capital can claim a small part of it.”
“More of your research?”
“I’m good at my job.” Her nose wrinkles. “Though, I suppose I can’t reasonably take credit for saving tens of thousands of lives now, can I?”
I grin. “Maybe not.”
“Drat.” She scoops up the last bite of her risotto. “So, why did the patent get denied?”
“So far our legal team doesn’t have any concrete answers. They say our item isn’t patentable, but that’s bullshit and we have the research and precedence to prove it.” I sigh, a familiar throb beginning in my temple. I’ve been going over and over this in my head, without making much progress. “And bullshit seems to be a problem that’s catching all around—there’s weird shit happening, some of it feels punitive in nature, and no matter how hard we try, no real answers are unearthed and we can’t get ahead of it.”
“Hmm,” she says quietly.
I push my plate back, suddenly not able to stomach the last few bites, no matter how delicious. “I’ve had to put out more than a fair share of fires in regard to contract renewals and distribution agreements, and that’s not even taking into account the patent, or the fact that the board’s not happy, or…that I’m getting the sinking sensation that someone in my organization is actively trying to sabotage the company.”
Her brows pull together. “Do you have any leads?”
“Unfortunately not.” I sigh, finish off my wine because at least the red will hone down the sharp edges of my frustration. “Worse, we seem to be involved in a certain powerful bureau’s investigation, though I don’t have any fucking answers on that front either.”
“Does that bureau go by a name that’s only three letters long?”
I put my wine glass down. “Yes,” I say slowly.
She picks hers up, takes a long sip. “I know this is unlikely, considering the minuscule connection between our companies, but my intuition is screaming at me.”
“What’s it saying?”
“That it’s too early to put my cards on the table, but that I promise to do some research tomorrow and let you know as soon as I have something concrete.”
I study her for a long moment.
Then I figure she’s fully capable of handling this, and that if she does find something pertaining to Genen-core, she’ll share it.
So I just say, “Okay.”
Her eyes go wide. “Just… okay?”
“Yeah, cookie. Just okay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, but otherwise…I’ve spent a while trying to figure this shit out on my own. If someone as smart as you wants to take a crack at it, I’m down.”
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
Then opens again.
But before she can reply to me, the door to the kitchen swings open and Dean is reappearing, a waiter on his heels.
They sweep away the dredges of our entrees, deposit coffees and decadent desserts in front of us.
And then Marie is smiling up at me, scooping her spoon into the chocolate mousse, and she asks, “What kind of books do you read?”
We spend the rest of our time at Dean’s discussing books that we’ve read and places we’ve traveled to and the locations that are still on our bucket lists.
There isn’t any tension.
But there is plenty of laughter and teasing, and when I leave her just inside her front door, after having kissed her long enough for my control to begin to unravel, she doesn’t press me for one more night—and only one night.
Instead, she smiles as I step back out into the hall, and says…
“Don’t think I forgot about the deepest, darkest secret part.”