every intention of finding out how the other man had gotten hold of the papers, but he understood the attempts to do so now.
A small spark of satisfaction flared at the knowledge Eber had been no more aware of his daughter’s efforts to prevent pregnancy than Ariston had been.
Ariston arrived at the restaurant right on time for the eight-o’clock reservation, but Chloe had already been seated.
Her now shoulder-length brown hair with its golden highlights was an unmistakable beacon at his favorite table. She appeared to be enjoying a jumbo shrimp cocktail. A mutual favorite of theirs.
“I am not late, I hope,” he said as he took the chair across from her.
She looked up, a wry twist to her lips. “You know you aren’t. But since you divorced me, I’ve been living more like a normal person and I usually eat dinner around six. I was starving, to tell you the truth.”
He was pleased to see her eating at all and thought her claims she normally ate somewhat of an exaggeration.
She had lost weight since the divorce and he would prefer to see her put it back on. For her health’s sake. Not because her overthin figure had turned him off. He wasn’t sure anything could.
For whatever reason, his libido was turned to her signal to near devastating effect.
But she’d never had much spare weight to begin with, having an indifferent attitude toward food that he had wondered about at times during their marriage.
The slightest cold or flu had her off her feet and losing pounds she couldn’t afford off her willowy five-foot-eight-inch figure.
He should inquire as to whether she’d been ill recently. That would account for her more gaunt appearance now.
For the present, he simply said mildly, “Well, that looks good. I hope you ordered me one as well.”
Her green eyes twinkled as she nodded at the waiter, hovering nearby. “Oh, I thought you could do without.”
The waiter arrived with Ariston’s matching appetizer. They took a moment to order their entrées.
“You like to tease the bear.” Ariston gave her a mock frown. “I had forgotten that.”
“Really? I thought you said I was memorable.” Something shifted in her expression, but then she was smiling again, if with less sparkle than he remembered. “But you meant sexually, didn’t you?”
He was too smart to agree with her. He might have played the fool during their marriage, but he wasn’t one. Not really.
“There are many things I remember about you, Chloe.” That, at least, was the truth.
Her green gaze narrowed speculatively. “I imagine I was the first woman to ever leave you. That would have made me memorable, I suppose.”
“That’s the thing about imagination. It’s not real.”
Her shock was palpable. “I didn’t know you’d had any serious relationships. I can’t believe she ditched you either.”
“Why not? You did.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Because we wanted different things,” he mocked. “Perhaps my memory is faulty, but it was you in those discussions with me and my grandfather via video conference saying you wanted children eventually and that you agreed to the marriage.”
“I’m not the one who filed for divorce.”
“I wouldn’t have been either, if you’d still been there when I got back from Hong Kong.”
Both her expression and the sound that came out of her mouth said she didn’t believe him.
“Shannon was my one and only serious girlfriend,” he said, rather than trying to convince Chloe of something Ariston would rather forget himself.
“When?”
“A long time ago. I was younger than you were when we married.”
Interest burned bright in Chloe’s emerald gaze. “How young?”
“Nineteen.”
“How old was she?” Chloe asked, proving an insight he didn’t expect.
“Twenty-seven.” And Shannon had had an entire universe worth more experience than he had with sex and the male-female thing.
He’d avoided it because of what he’d seen in his parents’ marriages, so he’d been entirely unprepared for a piranha like Shannon to come into his life.
Chloe stopped eating, fiddling with her silverware instead. “How long did it last?”
“Long enough for her to gather enough inside information so her father could steal a multimillion-dollar deal out from under me.” Long enough for him to tell Shannon that he loved her and wanted to be together always.
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