The Trouble With Love(36)

“Coming right up,” Jana said with a smile. She didn’t have to be told where Cassidy had been sitting earlier, nor his drink order. Women remembered men like Cassidy.

“You’re telling me you never go to dinner on the first date?” Emma said, not yet ready to drop the topic. Sometimes the glimpse into the male brain was fascinating. Fascinating and appalling.

“Well, I used to,” he said. “In my twenties, when I thought I had all the time in the world to wine and dine all the women in the world. But now? A free weekend night is rare. A great first date is even more rare. The chances of them overlapping? Slim to none. Why risk it?”

Emma shook her head. “Why go out with this Alisha in the first place if she didn’t warrant dinner?”

“I didn’t know she didn’t warrant dinner, because I hadn’t met her,” Cassidy said distractedly as he snatched up her food menu. “It was a setup.”

“By whom?”

“Guys at the office. She was on Lincoln Mathis’s to-do list, but he finally gave me first shot.”

Emma fanned herself. “Wish I could get a spot on Lincoln Mathis’s to-do list.”

Cassidy gave her a dark look.

“What? Your star reporter is hot.”

Cassidy smiled his thanks at Jana for the wine. He started to take a drink, but then held up his glass.

She lifted hers in response. “What are we cheering to?”

Cassidy paused. “To being able to sit here with someone who I don’t have to impress.”

Emma laughed in surprise, but clinked his glass anyway. “Seriously?”

“Well, see, that’s what I like about us, Emma. We ignore each other when we want to ignore each other. Which is most of the time. But when we are in each other’s orbit, there’s something almost soothing about hanging out with someone who’s already indifferent to you. Can’t really mess anything up, you know?”

Emma thought about this as she sipped her wine. “I don’t know that that’s true. There are worse places we could sink, right? Say from indifference to all-out hate?”

Something flashed on his face, and he picked up the menu again instead of meeting her eyes, as though trying to hide something.

Then he seemed to change his mind, and glanced at her anyway. “Sometimes I think I’d prefer you hate me. At least then you’d notice me.”

Everything inside Emma seemed to freeze. I notice you—too much. Do you notice me?

Instead, she forced a slow smile. “Well, if you keep running your mouth about our past to our friends, I could probably muster some hate.”

He grinned, and the moment was gone. “Hey, you started it. If it were up to me, we’d never talk about it.”

“Not even to each other?” she asked curiously.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Emma sipped her wine. Contemplated. “I think I’d rather have that hamburger you mentioned.”

“Good girl.” Cassidy slapped the menu down on the bar, and Emma was oddly charmed by the almost boyish look on his face.

“So if this is a first date, but not a dinner-worthy date…why the heck are you wearing a suit?” she asked.

He glanced down. “I don’t know. Habit? Does it not work? Bad move? I skipped the tie.”

“It works,” she said somewhat begrudgingly. “It’s just an odd choice for someone who’s so gun-shy of first dates he won’t even take the woman to dinner.”

“You’re really hung up on that, huh?” he asked.

She shrugged. Sipped her wine.

“Emma.” His voice was cajoling.

She ignored him, and he turned around to face her, his smile teasing but not mean. “Emma, honey, is that a little bit of your old southern belle I see peeping out?”

Emma pursed her lips, and he laughed softly. “It is! Tell me, how many people know that beneath the Manhattan ice princess lies a southern debutante?”

“None,” she snapped. “Because I’m not that girl anymore.”

“Which girl?” he pressed. “The one whose shared debutante ball with her twin was so elaborate that it rivaled most women’s weddings?”

“You weren’t even there for the debutante ball. It was before your time.” And you weren’t there for the wedding, either.

“I saw the pictures,” he said. “I got the idea.”

“Hey,” she said, voice testy. “Just because my parents were determined to turn Daisy and me into little princesses doesn’t mean that I have to stay that way.”

She felt him studying her profile. “But Daisy did.”

“Yeah. Daisy did. Does,” Emma corrected. “Even after the divorce she’s still all pretty manners and bless your heart.”

Cassidy smiled and Emma’s heart twisted. “Guess my dad had the right idea all along when he tried to set you guys up.”

His smile dropped. “Emma—”

“Don’t, Cassidy. Don’t tell me you didn’t want to date my sister.”

He swore softly, dipping his head. “When I was twenty years old and didn’t even know you. And once I did—”

“It doesn’t matter. You got what you wanted. A job with my father. And a blissfully ignorant girlfriend—no, fiancée—who had no idea that you had asked her out just to get a job.”