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“Dinner? Who said anything about dinner?”
“It’s almost five. By the time we get back to the city, it will be dinnertime. Besides, talking to the press always makes me hungry.”
“My car’s back at Dad’s.”
“If you want to come back to get it, I’ll get my guy to bring you after dinner. Or in the morning.”
He had a driver. Of course he had a driver.
“Or I can just get someone to drive it back to you,” he offered. “Whatever suits you. So, dinner?”
“I thought we needed to talk. It didn’t sound like a conversation we should have in public.”
“We can eat at my place.”
“No.” The denial shot out of her mouth before she had time to think. Definitely no. No walking into the devil’s lair. The legends were pretty clear about what happened to women who descended into the underworld as well. There were no heroes in the wings waiting to rescue them. She had a horrible feeling if she let Alex Winters get under her skin then she’d be lost.
“Your place?” Alex suggested.
That didn’t sound much better but it was definitely the lesser of two evils. “If you like takeout.”
“You don’t cook?”
“I don’t cook for you.”
It came out bitchier than she intended. For a moment she thought he winced before he regained control. It gave her a tiny pang of guilt but one that evaporated rapidly when she remembered what he’d done. Still, she had to work with him for the next few months if she was going to keep the promise she’d just made on live television. “Besides, I just got back from a trip and my fridge is pretty empty. But I have takeout menus.”
“Sold.” He motioned her toward the elevator. “I’ll tell the guys I’m taking off. They can hold the fort. I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
Maggie emerged in the parking lot and hesitated, wondering where exactly Alex’s car might be. But then she spotted three cars parked in the slots next to her dad’s. Well, two cars and a gleaming Harley. She figured the Harley wasn’t Alex’s, he didn’t strike her as the bike type. The two cars were a big red Jeep and a silver Mercedes convertible. She guessed the Mercedes would be it.
The elevator dinged behind her and she turned as the doors slid open. Alex stepped out, spinning a set of keys in his hand. He aimed the fob at the two cars and, to her surprise, it was the Jeep that flashed its lights.
So he was a Jeep guy? Interesting. And where was the driver?
He must have seen her looking. “I was in the mood to drive myself today.” He opened the passenger door, gestured her in. “Jump in.”
“Jump” was expecting a little too much enthusiasm but she climbed in. “I thought the Mercedes was more your style.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s Lucas’s latest toy. I have an Aston when I want to get fancy and a BMW for my driver, but I like the Jeep. Especially for trekking out to the wilds.”
“Staten Island is hardly the wilds.”
“Anywhere off Manhattan is the wilds.” He grinned.
New Yorkers. “You grew up in Queens, right?”
“Yeah. Born and bred.” He started the car, slipped it into reverse, and backed out of the car park. “How did you know that?”
“I do my research.” She wasn’t going to admit she’d done a whole case study on him. Not that she’d spent much time on his early years other than basic biographical details. She knew he had a brother and two sisters, that his dad had been a subway driver and his mom a nurse. She knew he’d gone to college at Yale and graduated summa cum laude.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Alex stayed silent as he gunned the big car down the expressway toward the city. He didn’t want to have the conversation that he was about to have in the car. He didn’t particularly want to have it at all. He’d hoped that Tom would man up and tell his daughter the truth. But that apparently hadn’t happened.
He wasn’t looking forward to adding to the tension and worry that had turned the woman next to him from the grinning, happy girl she was in all the Saints pictures—all fire and energy—to someone fairly vibrating with hurt and anger.
She sat huddled in her big gray coat, as though it might somehow protect her against whatever was to come. It wasn’t cold in the Jeep, the heater was doing its job admirably, but Maggie looked frozen all the same, all the spark drained out of her.
