AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His dark eyes began to turn a soft grey. “Then don’t go.”
“That’s like admitting defeat.” Sonya’s determination grew strong. “I won’t give them the satisfaction.”
“So what is it you hope to accomplish by dragging me along?”
“If they thought we were an item, then I could escape their pity. I can’t bear to have anyone’s pity.”
“Yeah, I got that.” Daniel’s face was as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. She had no idea what he was thinking.
“I’ll drop hints that you and I have been secret lovers for the past few months.” She thought of the conversation that she had with her friends that afternoon over coffee. They had practically accused her of such. It wouldn’t be too difficult to convince them. “This way it looks like I wasn’t as interested in Tristan as I made it out to be.”
“Instead, attempting to conceal your true love?” His voice was flat.
“Something like that?”
Sonya frowned. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Asking Daniel to be deceitful was like asking the Pope to sneak a piece of red meat into the Vatican during lent. “Look, Daniel, forget I said anything—”
“I’ll do it.” He startled her completely by saying.
“What?” She blinked. “Really?”
Nodding, he went into the kitchen and placed his empty wineglass in the dishwasher. Then straightening he looked across at her. “On one condition.”
She raised a brow in speculation. “What’s that?”
“You return a similar favor next Friday night.”
Her mind got jumbled as she tried to unravel his words. “Similar favor?”
He waltzed out of the kitchenette and back towards the sofa where he stopped in front of it. “I’m expected at a banquet to celebrate this year’s newest engineer innovations. There will be a man there that I have known for a few years and holds some influence in the profession. In order to secure my chances, I need to play friendly.”
Her mind was still confused. Where was he going with this and how did he see that she could help him. “What is it he wants?”
“It’s more a question of what his daughter wants.”
Ah. The light came on. Sonya knew this scenario only far too well. “And you’re not interested but fear your rejection could affect your opportunity to secure an alliance with Daddy.”
He frowned, as if puzzled, then quickly smirked. “Something like that.”
She bit her lip. It sounded simple enough, but “A computer banquet?” She groaned. “Oh, Daniel, that sounds dreadfully boring. Can’t I be of assistance to you in another way?”
He grabbed his leather coat from the sofa prepared to leave.
“This long weekend at Tristan’s doesn’t sound terribly exciting either.” He shrugged and began to head for the exit. “I’ll leave it up to you to decide.”
She groaned. He wasn’t being fair. She wouldn’t fit into a computer banquet full of technical gurus and intellects any more than he would if—
She was wrong. Daniel wasn’t such a saint after all. He knew perfectly well how to use blackmail. “All right. You have a deal. I’ll do your banquet if you do my weekend.”
He simply threw her a grin over his shoulder and kept going. The swine. He knew she would agree. He hadn’t worried in the least.
Left alone in her apartment she turned around and noticed the slow cooker still sitting in the middle of the table. The aroma still emitted from the stoneware. She had an odd feeling from that day forward she would associate the smell of beef stew with Daniel Keller. The man was amazingly surprising. There didn’t seem a thing he couldn’t do. Except, apparently, ward off unwanted female attention.
Now that, Sonya told herself, was something she could do. She had her fair share of unwelcome propositions. With a grin she covered the stew and thought that the banquet might just be fun after all.
* * *
Daniel closed the door behind him and leaned against it. What was he doing? He knew better than this. The thing he needed least to do was scare Sonya away. Forcing her to merge to his part of the world was definitely not in his best interest. She already had some far-fetched notion that their two worlds were realms apart, never to be crossed.
