tingled pleasantly. But I drew my leg away. I wasn’t going to make this too easy for him. Besides, my heart was still bruised from Jean-Pierre—though I had to admit it was healing under the flattering balm of this hot guy’s attention.
How should I respond to his question? This man needed no boost to his male ego, and I wasn’t about to tell him he was better looking, better dressed, richer, and more confident than Nav. Keeping my face straight, I said, “You’re older.” Nav was twenty-eight, three years younger than me. This man, with his angular features, expensive style, and sophisticated aura, had to be older than me.
“Older?” One side of his mouth curved up.
“And his French is Québécois while yours is Parisian.” Though I did recall Nav telling me that as a child in London he’d learned continental French. When he’d moved to Quebec, he’d worked hard to change accents so he’d fit in with his fellow students. Doubt crossed my mind again. Those eyes were so much like Nav’s.
I narrowed my own eyes. “You’re absolutely positive you’re not him?”
He chuckled. “Would you like me to be Naveen? I can pretend, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m not sure you could. He’s a very nice person.” I said it teasingly. This man knew I was attracted to him, but I wanted him to know I had reservations.
“Ouch.” His brow wrinkled. “What did I do to deserve that?”
“You abandon your grandmother, then you see your girlfriend off at Dorval, and five minutes later you’re flirting with someone else?”
“Ma grand-mère?” He frowned in puzzlement. Then his face lightened and he snapped long, well-shaped fingers. Fingers just like Nav’s except for the excellent manicure. “You saw me at the station. How did I not notice you?” His Parisian French was so elegant, so much better suited to this kind of compliment than Québécois or English.
“Don’t go overboard on the flattery,” I said dryly, though I was a sucker for it. “And I wasn’t in the station, I was on the train.” I gestured toward the big window beside me. Outside, I saw fields of farmland bordered by lush forest. Soon we’d cross from Quebec into Ontario.
“Ah, yes. Well, the woman you saw, Mrs. Chowdary, isn’t my grandmother. I was crossing the station when her bag fell over, so I stopped to help.”
A Good Samaritan. Nav would have done the same thing. “That was kind.”
He shrugged. “The bag was far too heavy for her. She’s going to visit family in Quebec City and packed gifts for her daughter and son-in-law and six grandchildren.”
She’d told him her life story, and he’d listened. Points to him for being nice to the old lady, but that didn’t let him off the hook. “And what about the girlfriend? The Armani blond with the Birkin bag.”
“Observant, aren’t you?” He smiled and touched my bare forearm quickly. Casually. Except, I sensed that nothing this man did was casual. If his intent had been to make my skin burn, my breath quicken, to make me even more physically aware of him, he’d succeeded. “And you jump to conclusions,” he added.
“Do I?”
“She’s no more my girlfriend than Mrs. Chowdary is my grandmother. My seat was beside hers, we got talking. You know how it goes.”
“Certainement. I suppose the women you sit beside always give you their phone numbers?” I guessed the blonde had, from the comment I’d overheard. And because he was that kind of man.
The kind of man I went for. The dangerous kind.
“It’s been known to happen.” Humor danced in his eyes.
I wished those eyes weren’t so like Nav’s. They made me want to trust him. I firmed my jaw. “And is that what you want from me? My phone number?” One more to add in his PDA? If so, he wouldn’t get it. I didn’t need a man who, like Jean-Pierre—and Nav—went through women the way I went through a box of Godiva chocolates.
He gave me a knowing smile. “What do I want from you? Many things. Starting with pleasant company on a long train trip. Fair enough?”
I’d have happily spent the trip chatting with the silver-haired lawyer, so why not with this sexy, flirtatious man? “Fair enough.” I held out my hand. “I’m Kat Fallon.”
He took it, but rather than shaking, held on to it. “Just to be clear, you don’t want me to be Naveen?”
A warm glow spread up my arm. “Cute. No. There’s only one Nav, and he’s my best friend.”
“Best friend.” He echoed the words slowly, thoughtfully.
He must think it unusual for a woman to have a male best friend, but it was the truth. A truth I’d never actually told Nav. It seemed kind of pathetic that an outgoing woman of my age had never had a friend I felt as close to as I did him.
“Well, then.” My seatmate lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a slow, soft, sexy kiss to the back of it. “You can call me Pritam.”
My breath caught. God, he had sensual lips, and that kiss had me imagining the way they’d feel on other, more intimate parts of my body. As he’d no doubt intended.
I tugged my hand away. “No last name?”
He shook his head. “I use only Pritam.”
“Really?” The single name, the clothes, the jewelry—he definitely wasn’t the normal guy you met on the street. “What line of work are you in?”
“Entertainment. And what do you do?”
Entertainment? That fit his image. I was curious, but answered his question. “I’m director of public relations at a hotel in Old Montreal. Le Cachet. Do you know it?”
“I do. It’s charming.”
“Have you stayed there? Or do you live in Montreal?”
“I’ve eaten there a time or two. And yes, at the moment I’m based in Montreal.”
“At the moment?”
“I’m doing business in Montreal. How about you? Did you grow up there? Your French is perfect, yet I sense you’re not a native Québécoise.”
“No, I’m from the West Coast. Vancouver.”
“Ah. Mountains and ocean. I hear it’s lovely. What brought you to Quebec?”
I was about to give him the edited version that had nothing to do with escaping family pressures, when a uniformed steward stopped beside us. “Madame, Monsieur, would you care for a drink before dinner?”
“I’d like a glass of white wine,” I told him.
“For me also,” Pritam said. “And it’s my treat.”
“We have a chardonnay from Château des Charmes or an Inniskillin pinot grigio,” the steward said.
“I’ll
