Dare Me to Want You, page 12
Not a brush-off, then, but a detour. She kept her shoulders from sagging through sheer stubbornness. “I could eat.”
“Good.” He touched the small of her back and ushered her out of the building. He didn’t say anything as they walked down the street, and she was too twisted up inside her own head to try for conversation. Nothing she said right now would change the truth, and the weight of it threatened to send her scurrying back to her place to barricade herself in with Garfunkel and the work files she still had to find time for this weekend.
Their destination was a little restaurant on the second floor of a converted apartment building. They’d left most of the interior walls up and designed low lighting so that even in the middle of the afternoon, it gave the illusion of a night tucked away. The hostess led them to a room that might have been a closet at one point, though it had two doorways now and space for a little booth for two.
Gideon waited for her to slide in and then took the spot next to her. The hostess left and Lucy became aware of a low jazz song playing in the background. She ran her finger over the rough tabletop. “I didn’t even know this place existed.”
“It’s new. A friend of mine bought the building a couple years back and construction just wrapped up a few months ago. The bottom floor is split into a clothing boutique and shoe store, and the third floor is privately owned.”
She’d definitely come down here to check out the shoe store in the future. She twisted to face him, but he spoke before she could. “What happened back there?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You were fine in the dressing room, and when you walked out, you’d put a wall up between us.”
She desperately didn’t want to talk about this, but his jaw was set in an all-too-familiar way. There would be no getting out of this conversation, short of crawling over the table and making a run for it. Since that was beneath Lucy’s dignity—and she didn’t know for certain that Gideon wouldn’t just chase her down—she sighed. “We have clear boundaries.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
That response gave her no indication of what he thought of that, so she hedged. “Very clear boundaries.”
Gideon drummed his fingers on the table. “Is the problem that you feel that I’m threatening the boundaries or that the boundaries themselves are the problem?”
Trust the man to just lay it out there with no qualms. She fought not to fidget. “I value our friendship. I know it may not seem like that after not speaking for two years, but I missed you terribly during that time and I feel like we’re almost starting to reclaim that lost ground.”
The guarded look on his face cleared. “You don’t want to jeopardize our friendship.”
“Exactly.” She didn’t mention the theoretical pending marriage or what their friendship might look like once she’d picked a man and followed through on that. The marriage might have sex included in the bargain, but it would still be a marriage without love. Having Gideon in her life, even on the outskirts, wasn’t something she was willing to give up.
Not now that she’d just gotten him back.
The waiter brought their waters and took their drink orders. Once the man disappeared through the doorway, Gideon turned back to her. “That gap in communication was as much my fault as it was yours. I let guilt get the better of me and figured that you didn’t want to see my face any more than you wanted to see Jeff’s.”
“You...weren’t wrong—at least, not at first.” She’d been so hurt and angry and embarrassed that she hadn’t wanted to see anyone for months after she’d broken off her engagement. The only person who’d ignored that was Becka, and even she’d had to come to Lucy. If Gideon had tried during that time, she would have slammed the door in his face.
By the time she’d gathered the strength to get back out into the world again, it was to find that her former friends had moved on without her. It made sense, in a way. She’d lost most of her good friends when she and Jeff had started dating—a sign she should have paid more attention to. He hadn’t missed a beat after their breakup, and most of their friends had been his first, so they’d moved along with him.
It was Gideon’s steady presence that she’d missed the most, but she hadn’t known how to reach out to him.
Or if she even should.
I’m here now. We are here now.
She held herself steady. “Regardless, I feel like I just found you again.”
“And you don’t want to lose that.” He said it almost as if musing to himself. When she tensed, he leaned back and slung an arm over the back of the booth. “I don’t want to lose it, either, Lucy. I missed you, too. I’m still missing you, if we’re going to be perfectly honest.”
Her jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? I’m right here.”
“Yes, you are.” He pulled her closer, tucking her against his body. “But we haven’t stopped to have a real conversation since you sat me down in your office and told me you wanted me to help you find a husband.”
Lucy opened her mouth to say he was wrong, but stopped and thought hard about it. Was he? “We’ve...talked.” But not like they used to. There had been nights where Jeff had passed out, or was occupied playing whatever his video game of the week was, and she and Gideon had sat and just talked. Shared things about themselves, about their dreams. She’d always chalked it up to being good friends—family, even—but even if they’d restarted their acquaintance, they hadn’t reestablished the intimacy they’d once had.
Sex, yes.
Intimacy, no.
She frowned. “I guess you’re right. God, I’m sorry, Gideon. I’ve been treating you like a prize stud.”
He chuckled. “I haven’t exactly complained. But I do miss us, Lucy. Whatever version of your future you’re aiming for, make room for me.”
That startled a laugh out of her. “You’re just as confident now as you were back then.”
“Two years can change a person, but it can’t change a person.”
That was what she was afraid of. Lucy had fought hard to shed the timid woman she’d become while dating Jeff. She’d even mostly succeeded, if one didn’t look too closely at her lack of dating. But she couldn’t shake the fear that, deep down, she was still that mouse of a person who’d let her boyfriend say such horrible things to her—worse, who’d believed him when he did.
“I should have known.” He spoke softly in the tiny space between them. “I said it before and I’ll say it again—I knew Jeff was an asshole, but I didn’t know the extent of it. I would have stepped in.”
Her heart surged even as she shook her head. “If anyone should have seen the signs and stepped in, it was me. I let myself get taken in by him, and I almost married him because I was too stubborn and too naive to see him for what he was. If we’re going to lay blame, there’s plenty to go around.” She covered his hand with hers. “I don’t want to talk about Jeff anymore. He’s taken up enough of both of our lives, and I don’t want to give him even another second.”
“I won’t argue that.” Gideon nudged her closer yet, until she was almost sitting in his lap. “I have the prettiest woman in all NYC sitting with me in a dark restaurant. I can think of a thousand things I’d rather say and do than talk about a piece of shit that we share a mutual history with.”
She laid her hand on his thigh, enjoying the way the muscle clenched beneath his jeans. “I can think of a few things to add to the list.” They were alone in this mini room within the restaurant. They could do anything they wanted to beneath the table and no one would be the wiser. “Gideon...” She slid her hand higher.
“Yeah?”
“What have you been up to since I saw you last?”
He blinked down at her as if he couldn’t reconcile her ever-sliding hand with her words. Finally he relaxed, muscle by individual muscle. “After you and...” He looked away and back. “Two years ago, I looked at my life and decided I was done dicking around. I went after the biggest accounts I could find and went head-to-head with companies that had reputations stretching back before we were born.” He laughed. “I figured I had nothing to lose, so I might as well aim for the stars.”
“You’ve made quite the name for yourself.” Even if her company didn’t make a habit of contracting headhunters to fill positions, Lucy would’ve had to be living under a rock not to hear news of Gideon. He’d beaten out several more well-known headhunters and developed an excellent reputation in the process. He always got his man—or woman, as it were.
God help the woman he finally sets his sights on. She won’t stand a chance.
The thought was bittersweet in the extreme. Lucy cared about him. She wanted him happy...but contemplating him with another woman made her want to throw things. Stop that.
He’s yours for the duration.
That will have to be enough.
But what if it wasn’t?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GIDEON INSISTED ON DESSERT, if only to keep things going for a little bit longer. Lucy must have felt the same way because she didn’t hesitate before she picked a particularly delicious-sounding apple cobbler to his cheesecake. The waiter—who was getting a significant tip since he’d made himself scarce in between checking on them—took their order and hurried off. The restaurant had filled up, though the only evidence of it they had was a low murmur of conversation by people they couldn’t see.
He curled a strand of Lucy’s hair around his finger. “You said we needed to talk.”
“Don’t we?”
He’d always liked Lucy’s directness. Even when she was highly uncomfortable with the subject—like sex—she still made an effort to cut through the bullshit and be as honest as possible. Now he almost wished that she was willing to let the slow slide of afternoon into evening go on without following through on her words this morning. Gideon should have known better. “Yeah, we do.”
She met his gaze directly, never one to shy away from a potential confrontation. “Shall I go first or shall you?”
Though he was tempted to let her take the lead, that was the coward’s way out. Gideon knew what he wanted and the only way to give him a snowball’s chance in hell was to go for it without reservation. So he let go of her hair and sat back. “Pick me.”
She blinked and then blinked again. “I’m sorry?”
“Screw the others guys and screw the list I put together. They won’t make you happy like I can, and you know it. I know you as well as anyone, and we match up in the bedroom and out of it. Pick me.” I love you. I’ve always loved you. He didn’t say it. He’d already pressed his luck by putting his cards on the table. If he threw that at her, she’d be gone before he finished the sentence.
She leaned forward and then shook her head. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying. I want you. You want me. We fit, Lucy. You can’t deny that it’s true.” He held himself still in an effort to keep from reaching for her. Crowding her now was a mistake and using sex to cloud her judgment was a dick move. Not one that he was above, but if he wanted a chance—a real chance—with her, he had to do this right.
As right as he could do it when they’d started this thing with her dating another guy and then restarted it by bargaining for sex lessons in addition to her attempting to marry another man.
When you put it like that...
Lucy put her hand to her mouth and dropped it as quickly. “I don’t know what to say.”
Hell, he really had overplayed it. He didn’t retreat farther physically, though he wanted to. Instead, Gideon gave her an easy smile. “It’s fine. We’re fine.”
“No, I don’t think we are.” She rubbed her hands over her face and looked at him, her blue eyes so bleak, it broke his fucking heart. “Gideon, even with all the crap in our history and the two-year separation, you’re one of the closest friends I have. I care about you. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost our friendship again and...” Her hands fluttered between them. “We have irreconcilable differences.”
“What are you talking about?” He reined in his reaction until she could tell him exactly what the hell she meant by that. I was never on that goddamn list.
“When’s the last time you dated someone for longer than a few weeks?”
He froze. “That’s the measuring stick you’re going to use against me? Fine, Lucy. I haven’t dated anyone for longer than a few weeks. I’ve been focusing on my career, and before that, it was school.” He shook his head, frustration reaching a boiling point. “It’s pretty rich that you expect me to roll with your limited dating history, but mine is the reason you won’t consider me.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Okay, it’s a little what I meant, but the core concept is still the same. What happens when I throw all my other options out the window and say yes to you? Are you planning on marrying me? Because that’s still the endgame, and rather quickly. Even if you are willing to take that step, what happens in a few weeks, months, however long, when you get bored—or, heaven forbid, you meet someone who you might actually love?” Lucy slumped in the booth. “No, it’s not worth the risk. You’d realize that if you took emotion out of your reaction.”
That was the problem—Gideon couldn’t take emotion out of the equation when it came to Lucy. He’d never been able to. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Maybe not intentionally. But eventually you’d resent me for pushing you into this choice.”
He took a calming breath and then another. “You’re not giving me much credit here, Lucy.” She thought she had it all figured out, and he couldn’t say a damn thing to dissuade her because it’d just be used as evidence of either how unready he was for that kind of commitment, or how much she valued their friendship. Struck down because she cares about me.
That brought him up short.
He was being greedy, but hell. The thought of her with someone else when they fit drove Gideon out of his goddamn mind. He took her hand, noting the tension there. “You’ve given me the worst-case scenario, and I respect that. Let me paint you a different picture.”
Lucy hesitated. “Okay.”
“You pick me. We get married, figure out living arrangements. Nothing bad happens. In fact, our quality of life improves exponentially. We force ourselves to take a few breaks from work a year and travel a bit. We start working through that list I know you’ve put together. We make our house a home. Fuck, maybe we have some kids, too. And every night, it’s just us. You and me.”
Her lips curved in a faint smile. “I like how you added in my sexual bucket list.”
“It’s important.” He ran his thumb over her knuckles. Gideon wanted the life he’d just described. He wanted to be able to shoot Lucy a text and meet her after work for dinner and then walk home together and make love on every goddamn surface of the place they shared. He wanted the lazy Sunday mornings and the long weekends away. He wanted to be able to call her when he nailed an account or to get her calls when she was victorious in court.
He wanted it all.
Lucy pressed her lips together. “What if it blows apart in our face?”
“What if it doesn’t?” He kept stroking her knuckles as she relaxed against him, bit by bit. “But let’s talk this out your way. You pick someone else. We stop sleeping together, but that tension isn’t going to disappear. Your new husband—” the term soured his stomach “—picks up on the tension and it makes him uncomfortable. Because it will, Lucy. Even if the guy is interested in marriage in name only, he’ll have a problem with it.”
“But—”
“Trust me. He will draw the line in the sand, and you’ll have to choose which side of it you’re going to be on.” Gideon hated seeing the worry all over her face, but if they were being real, it had to be said. “You’ll pick him. You’ll have to.”
The waiter walked in carrying their desserts. He set them on the table, took one look at Gideon’s and Lucy’s faces and stepped back. “Let me know if you need anything. Enjoy.” He dashed out of the room.
“I don’t... This is too much.” She picked up a fork and poked at her apple cobbler. “You just dropped a serious information bomb on me and I don’t even know how to wrap my head around it.”
“Then don’t.”
She twisted to look at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not saying you need to make the decision this second.” He nudged his dessert away. “But you need to stop thinking that I’m not an option. I am. Fuck, I’m the best option.”
“Arrogant to the very end.”
“I’m sure of my worth. I’m even surer of how good we’d be. We’ve more than proved it over the last two weeks.”
“One of which you weren’t even on the same side of the country.” But she relaxed against him and allowed him to tuck her head against his shoulder. “I’ll think about it, Gideon. I don’t... I don’t know if I can promise more than that.”
“Don’t let fear win, Lucy. You’ve gone down that road before and you already know how it ends.”
The walk back to Lucy’s place happened in a blur. She couldn’t get Gideon’s words out of her head and his big presence at her side eclipsed all else. He made it sound so simple—the easiest thing in the world. Pick me.
It wasn’t that easy.
The picture he painted was an attractive one. More than attractive. She craved that life, craved the connection already strung between her and Gideon. But Lucy had seen firsthand how bad things could get when she let someone close and they turned on her. Gideon would never cheat on her—of that, she was certain—but there were so many ways a person could hurt someone they cared about. Most of the time, it was even unintentional.
If she married some near stranger and they did something careless or cruel, she could respond without missing a beat. They weren’t close enough to hurt her. Gideon, though? He could cut her to the bone.
Aren’t you tired of living in fear?
The voice in her head sounded a whole lot like his. She nodded absently at the doorman and led the way into her building. Fear had controlled every choice she’d made since she’d found out Jeff had been sleeping around on her. Fear that she’d never get out had prompted her to end things in a rather remarkable fight. Fear of failure had thrust her into a career that she might love but which she’d chosen for its earning potential. Fear of being hurt again kept her from giving dating more than a token effort.
