The Billionaire's Matchmaker(33)

He glanced down at his soup then up at her. “It’s not really another life. It’s part of my life.” He shrugged, feeling weirdly okay with this. “I just don’t advertise it, and I asked my family not to, either. But you already know about it. So, yeah. I guess if we’re going to be friends we can talk about my parents…my past.”

“The bad divorce?”

“The abysmal divorce.”

She laughed. “Honestly, mine was no cake walk, either. My super-charming husband didn’t just end up with our condo, he got custody of our friends, and if my parents weren’t bound by blood, I think they would have kept him instead of me.”

“Really?” He chuckled. “That’s not right.”

“Well, he is an attorney. Though my brother, sister and I all went to college, none of us became a professional. Mom and Dad loved thinking Doug somehow got them into society or something.”

“But you’re successful now.”

“Yeah. And I could probably get them into more places than Doug ever could…but he was their first. And you know how that is.”

He laughed. “You make it all sound so funny.”

“Why not?” She shrugged. “You have to admit, my parents’ reaction was odd by anybody’s standards. Doug getting all of our friends, even mine…? Again, odd. When I began seeing it as funny, I got over it.”

“So I should see my wife making off with most of my money as funny?”

“Was it odd?”

“Odd?”

“Was there something unusual about the way she got the money?”

“Actually, she sort of stole it.”

“That’s promising.”

“When we began negotiating, we had to present financial statements, and I discovered she’d been siphoning money practically since our wedding day.”

“So you married a thief?”

“Technically, yes.”

“And you don’t see the humor in that?”

He hadn’t, but now that all was said and done, he supposed there was a bit of humor in that. His lips quirked. They rose into a full blown smile. Then a laugh escaped.

“See? Stick with me. I’ll show you how to make anything funny.”

They finished their soup and drank another beer in her living room, talking for hours about her business, which intrigued him.

“So you basically do nothing now?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say nothing. I outsource the production. There’s some monitoring involved. And I still design. I have a new collection for every season.”

“So why aren’t you busy with that?”

“Designing isn’t a nine-to-five job. I design when inspired. But when I get inspired, look out. I could work for days without sleep or food.”

“Interesting.”

The conversation died. Which also intrigued him. Normally he had about five minutes worth of conversation with anybody and then he didn’t want to talk anymore. They’d basically talked for hours. And he would continue talking if he could think of something to say.

Thirty seconds clicked by, and Marney yawned.

He’d accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish. He’d proven himself to be a normal, decent guy, which basically took them back to the place where they were on fettuccini night. Very attracted friends. The decision to have a sexual relationship was back in her hands.

He rose. Just thinking sexual relationship had started his engines. Watching her rise, dressed in her scruffy jeans and even scruffier T-shirt, revved them. From this point, he could go from zero to sixty in under five seconds, but this wasn’t his call. This was hers. If she wanted nothing tonight, that would be fine. He wouldn’t consider the relationship over. He’d be a gentleman.

He headed for the door. She followed him.

Okay. Think date. What would I do right now on a date?

“I had a really nice time tonight.”

She smiled. “I did, too.” She clasped her hands together and looked up into his eyes. “But we forgot something.”

Oh, alleluia. He wasn’t leaving after all.

“Your pot.”

“What?”

“Your soup pot.”

“Oh.”

Damn.

“I’ll get it.”

She turned to run into her kitchen, and he swore her hips swayed more provocatively than he’d ever seen a woman’s hips sway before. The foyer got hot. His humming engines revved again.

She returned with his soup pot, smiling as she handed it to him. “Here you go.”

Either he had a very vivid imagination or her voice had become incredibly breathy and sexy in the twenty seconds it took to get the pot.


His hand twitched.

She shook her head, and her dark hair shimmered around her. If that wasn’t a mating call, he didn’t know what was.

As if in slow motion, he took the pot.

Seconds ticked off the clock.

She didn’t make another move after the hair, so he was going to have to leave. But the least he should get is a goodnight kiss.

Holding the pot, he leaned down and kissed her. His lips brushed against hers softly at first, but that only left him hungrier than having no kiss at all, so he pressed his mouth against her lips and they opened for him. His tongue drifted inside, and sweet arousal poured through him.