Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(12)
“From where I’m sitting, you look pretty damn sophisticated, sweethe—ma’am.”
“You’re the humble boy from the hills?” she said incredulously.
He inclined his head.
“That humility wore off fast once you left them, didn’t it?”
He looked a little confused. What, he thought his prowling, mountain lion presence was humble? That was hilarious.
Of course the idea that she was a sophisticated Parisienne was pretty funny, too. She was a working class girl—a chef, for crying out loud—in a neighborhood of artsy diversity. The sophisticated Parisians were the bobos over in the Sixth and Seventh and beyond. But hey, if there was one bright side to tourists, besides the obvious economic ones, it was that they thought all Parisians were sexy and sophisticated, compared to them. She could go with it.
She tried to stand a little sexier and more sophisticated.
Jake dipped his spoon in the liquid nitrogen and watched the ice crawl up its stem. He touched it to his arm, jerking it back immediately, set the frozen spoon down on the counter, and braced his forearms there, studying her.
Wow. When this man looked at someone, he really looked. He could probably see right through to the marrow of her bones.
“Is it true what you told the investigators? That you don’t have a boyfriend?”
“Everything I told them was true,” Lina snapped, temper flaring instantly. She should have known. The investigators didn’t believe her, or at least their U.S. counterparts didn’t, and Jake was just hanging around to see what else he could find out.
“Kind of hard to credit,” Jake said mildly.
“That I could tell the truth?” Lina glared at him. Why, because she was “Arab”? She’d been surrounded by some form of racism all her life, but caught up in her work, in the life of a Parisian, in the diversity of her city and her friendships, it had hardly seemed like the backbone of her identity. But these days, between the rise of fundamentalism in some circles and the anti-Muslim backlash in others, sometimes being just the typical Parisian who barely thought about religion at all felt like being Leia in the garbage disposal unit on the Death Star. Judgment pressing against her from all sides, trying to squeeze the life out of her. And no droid ready to intervene and release the pressure of all that crap either. She’d always thought she was Lina Farah, not arabe or musulmane or franco-arabe or beurette or maghrébine but a top pastry chef. But being the central target of a terrorist attack had shattered the hell out of that bubble.
“That you don’t have a boyfriend.”
Oh. She hesitated, not at all sure how to take that. A test? A compliment? Was he seriously coming on to her? And if so, was it for his sake or for his country’s?
“Why don’t you?” Jake studied her.
“I can’t get anyone to put up with me.”
Jake laughed low in his throat, a laugh like that secret smile of his, as if he didn’t intend to share it. A sexy rumble that heated her from her toes to the roots of her hair. “Yeah, right.”
“I have a very intense career, I’m busy almost every night until midnight, and I don’t do that eyelash crap.”
“Eyelash crap?”
She batted her eyelashes. “Ooh, you’re such a big, strong, smart man, of course you should decide everything.”
That elusive smile broke into a slow, full grin. “You sound like me.”
“I do?”
“Intense job, busy most nights not to mention most months of the year, and I don’t do that eyelash crap either.”
She gave his stubby, sandy eyelashes a doubtful look.
He leaned across the counter, into and over her personal space, and gazed down at her from under those lashes. “Ooh, you’re such a cute, sexy little thing. Of course I should make everything I am small enough that you can wrap it around your little finger.”
Their eyes met and held. She braced herself against the impact of that hazel. “I have to confess, I’m very disappointed you didn’t try batting your lashes, too.”
He winked at her and sat back.
Hmm. This man might be trouble in more ways than one. And the last thing she needed in her life right now was more trouble. “So you can’t get anyone to put up with you either?” she said dryly.
Ha. He was seriously hot. Women must fall all over him, with that alpha sexy crap going for him. And those freaking freckles. It should be illegal to flaunt those things so close to a woman’s fingers.
But his amusement faded. He prodded a thawed, limp rose petal with one big finger and didn’t say anything. A hint of grimness to his mouth and eyes.
“Why, are you a jerk?” she asked.
He pushed away from the counter and went back to prowling.
And Lina took a deep breath of…relief? Disappointment?
It’s better this way. The last thing you need to do is try to use sex to get over trauma. That can’t possibly be healthy.
Plus, she’d forgotten to mention one other reason she didn’t have a boyfriend. Lina had not gotten where she was today—independent, in an all-consuming career shooting for the top, not required ever to accommodate a man, to bend to a man, to weaken herself for a man—by not knowing how to cock block any dominant, sexy, arrogant guy who thought she was a cute little thing.