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I wanted to hop across the table, grab her by the waist, and pull her against me. “Oh yeah?”
She laughed as she played with my emotions. “Nah. He’s not my type.”
“Poor Ryan. I thought he was everyone’s type.” I cast a quick glance at my brother, noting him smiling like always at one of our female patrons.
“Apparently, I prefer the more brooding, quiet type.”
“Don’t get too many of those in here.”
“One’s really enough.”
When her gaze locked with mine, I couldn’t fucking breathe. I wanted to tell her everything, hating the fact that I was keeping something so huge from her, but I couldn’t. I knew instinctively that if I told Claudia about Shelby, she would leave, and I wasn’t ready for that. Hell, it was the last thing I wanted—to lose the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about, even though wasn’t mine in the first place.
“Tell me about your job,” I said, wanting to know everything there was to know about her.
“I work for a bank.”
“Which one? I’m switching branches.”
Claudia laughed at my lame joke, and I grinned back at her.
“I’m in charge of small business loans,” she said with a smile that lit up her eyes.
“You love it.”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Tell me why.”
Claudia sucked in a quick breath. “Because people come to me with their dreams in their hands, and I get to try to help them make those dreams a reality. Do you have any idea how many people want to start their own businesses and work for themselves?” She stopped short and shook her head. “Of course you do. You own your own business.”
“You meet with people every day who are trying to get business loans?”
“Pretty much all day long.”
“Wow.” I had never given much thought to the number of people who needed to borrow money to make their dreams a reality. We’d been lucky enough to start ours with our own funds. “So, do you get the final say?”
“I wish. But then we’d probably be out of business, because I’d give everyone the money they wanted,” she said before taking a sip of her drink.
“Everyone?”
“Why should one person be entitled to their dream more than someone else? I think everyone should get a shot at accomplishing the things they want.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. She obviously believed in what she said, even if was a pipe dream, a fairy tale.
“I think it’s a nice idea,” I said carefully, “but probably not very practical.”
“You apparently think like a computer and not a human,” she said, her accent coming out with her words.
Apparently, I’d said the wrong thing. Trying to make peace, I held up my hands.
“I’m not trying to upset you. I get what you’re saying from a sunshine-and-rainbows standpoint. But from a financial standpoint, you can’t go around giving everyone who asks a bag full of money. It’s just not smart business. You have to make sure that your investment will be returned; otherwise, you’re taking a loss.”
“But who are you to say what will or won’t work based on some stupid business plan that you’re required to provide?”
I laughed. I loved the way her mind worked. “That’s what the business plan is for.”
“You think I don’t know what a business plan is for? I know that, Frank.”
She’d spat out my name like it was sour on her tongue, and I hated to admit that seeing her get this fired up turned me on a little.
