Frisk Me(48)

But he was right about one thing…

It had felt a bit like a date. Even more so now that he was walking her home on a warm spring evening.

“So you never answered my question,” Luc said as they wove around a group of drunken businessmen. “Why did you trick us into this story?”

She glanced up at him, making her eyes go wide. “It isn’t all written right here, in my eyes?”

He gave a half smile. “That only gives me the highlights. I want the full version. The what-makes-Ava-tick account.”

She looked away. “I don’t know how to explain it without sounding…driven. Ambitious. Aggressive.”

“Well good news, Sims, the cat’s already out of the bag on all those traits.”

His tone was teasing, but her smile slipped a little all the same.

It was true…she was driven in her desire to succeed in her career. And that trait had never bothered her before.

If anything, she’d been proud of being a modern woman, or whatever.

But tonight, she was seeing herself through Luc Moretti’s eyes. And Ava wasn’t entirely sure she liked what she saw.

Still, she had promised him the truth, so…

“I want to be anchorwoman,” she said, stopping when she realized they were outside her apartment building.

He stopped and turned to face her. “Sounds like a reasonable goal for a TV reporter.”

Ava shrugged, feeling oddly restless. “Yeah. But it’s competitive and political, and I’m worried by the time something opens up, I’ll be too old.”

Luc’s eyebrows lifted. “Old? You’re what, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-eight. And don’t start in on me about how I’m a spring chicken with my whole life ahead of me, because time and age work differently in TV.”

“If I look like the type of guy that would use the phrase ‘spring chicken,’ I need to do some serious reevaluating of my manliness.”

Trust me. Your manliness is just fine.

Two women came out of Ava’s apartment building, and she gave them a little smile and wave. Like most New Yorkers, she wasn’t necessarily buddy-buddy with her neighbors, but you never knew when you’d need someone to pick up your mail or loan you coffee.

One of them gave Ava a little wave, but the other was too busy checking out Luc, and curse the man, he wasn’t exactly oblivious to the attention. He stuck his hands in the back pocket of his jeans and smiled, looking very much like a gorgeous single guy and less like the superstar cop.

“Did you just wink at that girl?” Ava asked incredulously after the two women were out of earshot.

“What’s it to you if I did, Sims?”

“Nothing.” She pursed her lips. “For a self-proclaimed ladies’ man, I thought you’d have smoother moves.”

“Could be that my moves are so smooth you don’t even know they’re moves.”

“Doubtful, Lothario. Most women over the age of fourteen know when a guy’s into them.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Do they?”

For a second her breath caught, and she might as well be back in tenth grade because she really, really wanted to ask if he was implying what she thought he might be implying…that he was into her.

But before she could get up the courage to ask, he poured ice water all over the moment. “So you never really answered the question…am I your ticket to the anchor seat?”

Right. Right. Because ultimately this evening wasn’t about winning over Luc, it was about gaining Officer Moretti’s trust. And to do that, she needed to lay all her cards on the table.

Almost all her cards.

“Yes,” she said succinctly. “I heard about your hero antics, saw the videos, and followed my instincts that it could make for a career-changing story.”

Luc studied her as he rocked back a little on his heels. “The thing is, Sims, I’m not sure you’re right about that. At the end of the day, I’m just a man in a uniform, you know?”

His expression was so open and honest that her heart melted.

Just a little.

Sometimes Ava felt like she had a little wall of ice around her emotions. Not because of any traumatic breakup, or angsty romantic past, but just like she was sort of born without that softness that most of her girlfriends seemed to have.

But now…now it was occurring to her that maybe she just hadn’t met the right man. Hadn’t met the person who cared enough to look beneath the surface.

And this man had. He’d asked about Ava the person. Not Ava the talking head on TV.

Ava’s emotions felt anything but frozen at the moment.

“The man beneath the uniform is exactly what I want to show people,” she said, keeping her voice soft. It’s that human element that made you pseudo-famous in the first place.”

Luc’s eyes went warm, and he took a half step closer. “Now who’s putting on the moves?”

She hadn’t realized how close they were standing before, and now there were only inches separating them. The world around them seemed to go quiet, and her gaze dropped to his mouth.

It would be so easy to lean into him.

So easy to take this simmering attraction between them to the next level.

And yet…

He was a story. Her story. The story.