to dinner with you? Very well, I accept. How about o ya for sushi? I haven’t gotten to try there yet.”
Emma stopped in her tracks, seemingly startled by his turn of the conversation. “What? No.”
“No sushi? You’re right. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea. How about a steak house?”
“No. I mean, no, I don’t want to go to dinner.” Her face blushed a deeper red this time; she was clearly flustered with irritation. She brushed past him into the hallway. He took a moment to admire the tight fit of her black pants as she sauntered away, then jogged a few steps to catch up to her.
“Why not?” he asked, pulling alongside.
“It would be inappropriate,” she said over her shoulder.
“Says who? I’m not your boss. I don’t see anything wrong with taking you to dinner as a friendly welcome to my company. I take clients out to eat all the time.”
“You haven’t built a reputation like yours on simply being friendly to women.”
Her sharp words jabbed at Jonah. It sounded like her concerns were less about it appearing inappropriate to others and more about her less-than-flattering opinion of his love life. “Ah, so you don’t want to be seen in public with a man whore like me, right? Would it damage your sparkling reputation, Emma?”
Emma picked up her pace, quickly turning a corner and heading down an empty hallway, probably to the copier again. “Honestly, yes. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. I’m not interested in men like you or the kind of ‘friendliness’ you offer.”
They stopped outside the elevator and she pushed the down button, refusing to look him in the eye. It made him wonder why. Those words didn’t jibe with the woman who had kissed him in the dark supply closet. “I don’t know...” he teased, letting a sly smile curve his lips. “You might like sullying your reputation a bit with me. It didn’t seem to bother you so much yesterday.”
Her head snapped around to look at him with a frown pulling down the corners of her pink lips. “Or I might end up in one of those gossip rags and have everyone talking about me.”
Jonah hated those publications. Why anyone was interested in his life, he didn’t know. “Who cares what other people think about what you and I do?”
The doors opened and Emma rushed inside with Jonah in her wake. “I care. You might be a millionaire playboy, but I’m a professional. Something like that could cost me my job.”
“Would your boss really care about the two of us being seen together? Why would you want to work for someone that uptight? Come work here. I could use a new finance officer.”
Emma finally looked up at him, her green eyes widening in surprise, but then shook her head. “That’s a nice offer, Mr. Flynn, but I don’t ever want it to be said that I earned my job on my back.”
She’d called him by his formal name again. They were regressing, if that was even possible. “I never said anything about you being on your back, Emma. All I suggested was dinner. You filled in the rest based on your biased presumptions about me.”
A chime announced their arrival on the next floor and she shot out the minute she could fit through the doorway. “They aren’t presumptions anymore. Now they’re from personal experience. Yesterday is all the proof I need to know that even something innocent can go astray when you’re involved, Mr. Flynn.”
That was three times now. “Please call me Jonah. Mr. Flynn is my father. And he’s dead. Besides, I already apologized for that. I told you I didn’t know what got into me. I won’t do it again unless you ask me to. Just have dinner with me.”
Emma turned suddenly and planted her hands on her hips. “Why are you dogging me so hard? Why me? Don’t you have some underwear model to keep you entertained?”
Jonah shoved his hands into his pockets in frustration and made a mental note: no more models. They gave him a bad reputation and intimidated other women. He had a universal appreciation of the female body in all its forms. Women rarely understood that, though. They just measured themselves against this perfect ideal and didn’t think he could desire them, as well.
“What if I truly, genuinely, was interested in you, Emma? That I thought you were smart and funny and attractive and wanted to see what could happen between us? Is that so bad?”
“In any other time and any other place, maybe not. But as it stands, no dinner. No dates. Just, no thank you.” Emma turned and marched into the coffee shop.
It was fairly empty at this hour, so Jonah followed her, refusing to end this conversation until he’d won. “Let me at least buy you coffee.”
Emma chuckled and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “It’s free in here.”
Jonah arched a brow in amusement. “Not for me, it isn’t. I pay for it all. As a matter of fact, I’ve bought you several meals since you’ve been here. What’s the harm in one more? The only difference is that we eat it at the same time at the same table.”
She narrowed her green gaze at him and sighed. “You’re not going away until I at least agree to have coffee with you, are you?”
“Coffee is a good start.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll have a tall hot tea with two sugars, one cream, and a cinnamon roll. I’ll be waiting at a table. And when we’re done, I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Got it?”
Jonah grinned wide, the small victory seeming bigger when Emma was involved. “Absolutely.”
He found her seated at a table in the back corner of the coffee shop a few minutes later. Jonah watched silently as she doctored her hot tea and removed the bag. “What got you into accounting?” he asked. This wasn’t the time or place for bold moves or hard questions.
“I dislike ambiguity,” she responded. “In math, there is no gray area, no questionable decisions. Two plus two equals four. I liked having a career based in something I could depend on. It also seemed to be a respectable profession. My parents were both pleased with my decision.”
“And what if you’d wanted to be a fashion model or a rock star?” Jonah asked. “What would they have thought about that?”
Emma only shook her head. “I would never want to do something like that. For one thing, I’m not pretty enough or talented enough. And even if I were, I wouldn’t do it. Those kinds of people end up in the magazines right beside you.”
Jonah frowned. He didn’t like the way she spoke about herself. “It’s not so bad,” he countered. “People read those magazines because they want to live vicariously through people like me. They want to share in the glamour and excitement.”
“My sister was the one destined for the spotlight, not me.”
“And what does your sister do?” Jonah asked.
“Nothing. She’s dead.” Emma put the lid on her cup and picked up her plate. “I’m sorry, Jonah, but I’ve got to get back to work.”
* * *
Emma
