are you from, then?’
He gave her one of his toe-curling smiles. His eyes, Millie thought distantly, were so warm. She wanted to curl up in them, which was a nonsensical thought. ‘I’m from New York too.’
‘I suppose I could have guessed that.’
He laughed, a low, rich chuckle. ‘How?’
‘You’ve got that over-privileged, city-boy veneer,’ she responded sweetly, to which he winced with theatrical exaggeration.
‘Ouch.’
‘At least now we understand each other.’
‘Do we?’ he asked softly and Millie focused on her drink. Sip. Stare at the ice cubes bobbing in the liquid. Don’t look at him. ‘Why are you so prickly?’
‘I’m not.’ It was a knee-jerk response. She was being prickly. She hadn’t engaged with a man in any sense in far too long and she didn’t know how to start now. Why had she agreed to this? She took another sip of wine, let the bubbles crisp on her tongue. ‘Sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m not usually quite this bitchy.’
‘I bring out the best in you?’
‘I suppose you do.’ She met his gaze, meaning to smile with self-deprecating wryness, but somehow her lips froze in something more like a grimace. He was gazing at her with a sudden intentness that made her breath dry and her heart start to pound. She wanted him to be light, wry, shallow. He wasn’t being any of those things right now. And, even when he had been, she had a horrible feeling he’d simply done it by choice.
‘So why are you on St Julian’s?’ he asked.
‘Holiday, of course.’
‘You don’t seem like the type to holiday willingly.’
Which was all too true, but she didn’t like him knowing it, or knowing anything. ‘Oh?’ she asked, glad to hear she was hitting that self-deprecating note she’d tried for earlier. ‘And you know me so well?’
He leaned forward, suddenly predatory. ‘I think I do.’
Her heart still pounding, Millie leaned back as if she actually felt relaxed and arched an eyebrow. ‘How is that?’
‘Let’s see.’ He leaned back too, sprawled in his chair in a manner so casually relaxed and yet also innately powerful, even in an ocean-side bar wearing board shorts. ‘You’re a lawyer, or else you’re in finance.’ He glanced at her, considering, and Millie froze. ‘Finance, I’d say, something demanding but also elite. Hedge-fund manager, maybe?’
Damn it. How the hell did he know that? She said nothing.
‘You work long hours, of course,’ Chase continued, clearly warming to this little game. ‘And you live in a high-rise building, full-service, on— Let’s see. The Upper East Side? But near the subway, so you can get to work in under twenty minutes. Although you try to jog to work at least two mornings a week.’ Now he arched an eyebrow, a little smile playing about his mouth. ‘How am I doing so far?’
‘Terrible,’ Millie informed him shortly. She was seething inside, seething with the pain of someone knowing her at all, even just the basics. And she hated that he’d been able to guess it, read her as easily as a book. What else could he find out about her just by his so-called powers of observation? ‘I run to work three mornings a week, not two, and I live in midtown.’
Chase grinned. ‘I must be slipping.’
‘Anyway,’ Millie said, ‘I could guess the same kinds of things about you.’
‘OK, shoot.’
She eyed him just as he had her, trying to gain a little time to assemble her thoughts. She had no idea what he did or where he lived. She could guess, but that was all it would be—a guess. Taking a breath, she began. ‘I think you work in some pseudo-creative field, like IT or advertising.’
‘Pseudo-creative?’ Chase interjected, nearly spluttering his soda. ‘You really are tough, Camilla.’
‘Millie,’ she reminded him shortly. Only Rob had called her Camilla. ‘You live in Chelsea or Soho, in one of those deluxe bachelor loft apartments. A converted warehouse with views of the river and zero charm.’
‘That is so stereotypical, it hurts.’
‘With a great room that’s fantastic for parties, top-of-the-line leather sofas, a huge TV and a high-tech kitchen full of gadgets you never use.’
He shook his head slowly, his gaze fastened on hers. He smiled, almost looking sorry for her. ‘Totally wrong.’
She folded her arms. Strange how her observations of him made her feel exposed. ‘Oh? How so?’
‘All right, you might be right about the loft apartment, but it’s in Tribeca—and my television is mid-size, thank you very much.’
‘And the leather sofas?’
‘Leather cleans very easily, or so my cleaning lady tells me.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And I’ll have you know I do use my kitchen, quite often. I find cooking relaxing.’
She eyed him uncertainly. ‘You do not.’
‘I do. But I bet you don’t cook. You buy a bagel on the way to work, skip lunch and eat a bowl of cereal standing by the sink for dinner.’
It was just a little too close to the truth and it sounded unbelievably pathetic. Suddenly Millie wanted to stop this little game. Desperately. ‘I order take-out on occasion as well,’ she told him, trying for breezy. ‘So what do you do, anyway?’
‘I’m an architect. Does that count as pseudo-creative?’
‘Definitely.’ She was being incredibly harsh, but she was afraid to be anything else. This man exposed her in a way that felt like peeling back her skin—painful and messy. This date was over.
‘As entertaining as this has been, I think I’ll go.’ She drained her glass of wine and half-rose from her chair, only to be stopped by Chase wrapping his fingers around her wrist, just as he had before—and, just as before, she reacted, an explosion of senses inside her.
‘Scared, Millie?’
‘Scared?’ she repeated as contemptuously as she could. ‘Of what—you?’
‘Of us.’
‘There is no us.’
‘There’s been an us since the moment you agreed to a drink, dinner and a walk on the beach,’ he informed her with silky softness. ‘And so far we’ve just had our drink.’
‘Let me go,’ she said flatly, her lips numb, her whole body buzzing.
Chase held up both hands, his gaze still holding hers as if they were joined by a live wire. ‘I already did.’
And so he had.
