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“Phillip,” I said, feeling as though I’d been caught doing something wrong. “My friend.”
“You were going to tell him?” he asked.
“It’s not like he’s a reporter,” I said. “He doesn’t even know any reporters.”
“Trust me, by tomorrow, he’ll know a bunch of them.” He reached out his hand, touching my fingertips with his own and then retreating, leaving my skin tingling.
I was annoyed by and attracted to the man—a gross combination.
“Is this the hand-holding part of the evening?” I asked, feeling miserable.
His smile was so surprising, it disarmed me right out of my misery. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Why don’t we order?”
“I already did,” I said and his eyebrows shot up.
“What am I having?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry. The phone at his elbow buzzed and he glanced at the screen, his body poised to stand up.
“You know, if you really want to convince people that we’re dating, you’d turn that thing off for an hour or two.”
“I don’t ever turn my phone off,” he said, staring at me as if I’d asked him to take off his clothes and dance the hula.
“Ever?”
“I turn the ringer off, but no, I never turn off my phone. I’m the mayor pro tempore of a major metropolitan city.”
I sat back, seeing Carter in a new way. A sad new way. “That’s not all you are,” I asked, “is it?”
He blinked, his eyes heavy and dark for just a moment, as if he understood the truth of what I’d said, and then he grabbed his phone. “This is my world, Zoe, and you’re only passing through. Don’t make judgments on things you don’t understand. I’ll be right back.”
My entire body flushed and buzzed with anger and embarrassment. I just got a dressing-down from my fake date.
“Well,” I muttered, grabbing another roll. “No wonder he’s alone.”
A few moments later he was back. He hesitated at my chair, his fingers brushing my shoulder and sending sparks down my body, straight to my breasts.
Down, girls, I thought, sternly. Those fingers are all wrong for you.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“Probably not,” I said. “If this were a real date, I would have left.”
His chuckle was dry. “It wouldn’t be the first time a date left me.”
I gaped at him. “And you’re okay with that?”
“I love my job, Zoe, and I’ve never met a woman that made me want to put my work second.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, wondering why that sounded noble. Sexy, even. As though he was just a hardworking man looking for the right kind of woman.
My hormones, absolutely out of control with baby power, really liked Carter in that light—as if he was the hero in a romance novel and I was the young virgin secretary there to change his life.
I crossed my legs and tried to think of smelly pointe shoes. Dancing on broken toes. Blisters. “What are all the phone calls about? Mayoral espionage? Is New Orleans trying to take our land?”
He laughed. “I wish. Actually, I don’t wish. I’m getting some personal funding for the Glenview Community Center debacle, and I think the deal is getting pretty close to going through.”
“Oh,” I said, my roll forgotten in my hands. He needed to stop doing that. Just when I’d convinced myself I didn’t like him, no matter how good he looked in a suit, he confessed to fixing a community center debacle. “That’s good.”
“It’s great,” he said, leaning back, his jacket sliding open to reveal his trim waist in a crisp white shirt.
Delicious, I thought, which was ridiculous but true nonetheless. I kind of wanted to dip him in cream cheese.
“With that community center being finished, hopefully we can get some more community support to repair the centers that need it. Get some much-needed programs up and running in underserviced neighborhoods.”
“The lights didn’t work in my room at Jimmie Simpson today,” I said. “I had my toddlers dancing outside in the ball diamond.”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “If we want to cut down on crime and vandalism and increase our graduation rates, we need to give kids a place to go besides the street. It’s the only way to curb the total downward spiral our teenage population is currently experiencing. Without programs that interest kids and plug them into something positive—and without a place to have those programs—I don’t know how to turn things around.”
I stared at him, spellbound. Mesmerized by his passion.
Did I think Carter O’Neill was cold? Fool. He was fire under ice. He was crimson coals, waiting for the chance to ignite.
“Sorry,” he said, after a moment. The passion banked, vanished. Like it never was. It was quite a trick, as disarming as his smile. “I get carried away.”
“You’re right to,” I said. “We should all get carried away about this.”
