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He glanced over at me. “No. I was alone, having dinner at the bar. Typical bachelor CEO Friday night kind of thing.”
“Oh.” It was all I could think of to say. Relief flooded me when he pulled into my long driveway and my car pulled in next to us. Timmy hopped out of the passenger seat and surveyed the premises.
Gabe glanced at him. “You have security with you?”
“When I go out, yes. The board thought it was a good idea.”
“Your board has an excellent reputation for a reason. I approve.” He turned back to me. “So, tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m assuming you’re working?”
“Of course.”
“So am I. But as tomorrow night is Saturday night, and Saturday night is a night when people often venture out to get dinner, I was wondering if you’d like to do that too? With me?”
“You know I don’t do dinner.”
“Well, if you can make time for dinner with Clive Warren, you can make time for dinner with me. Plus, you said you liked going to dinner.”
“I was just trying to be polite.”
“Perfect. I
’m asking you to dinner, you’re trying to be polite—it’s officially a date. I’ll pick you up at eight.” He got out of the car and opened my unusual door for me, his eyes twinkling in the dim light spilling from my house. “That should give you time to put in a solid ten hours at the office, enough to assuage your impending guilt.”
He took my hand and helped me out from the car. We stood together in the dim light spilling from my house. “Good night, Lauren. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
I shook my head and stifled a smile. “Okay.”
“Don’t sound so excited.” He grinned, and I caught a flash of dimple as he headed back to the driver’s side. “You’ll give me a big head.”
I couldn’t suppress my smile. “Good night.”
He smiled at me once more, then disappeared, reversing his beast of an electric car and speeding off into the night.
“Ms. Taylor?” Timmy called. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I called back.
The truth, however, was a little more complicated than that.
Chapter 4
The next day dragged. I looked at the clock and yawned. It was only one in the afternoon, but I was exhausted. Hannah had accosted me as soon as I’d walked through the door the previous night, wanting to hear all the details about my evening.
She’d been more than a little gleeful when I told her Gabe had driven me home and positively ecstatic when I’d told her we were having dinner. Worst of all, she’d made me promise to come home from the office by six, so she could pick out my clothes and do my makeup.
I groaned and pulled up my latest report. I usually approached my work with a single-minded concentration, but thoughts of Gabe kept blurring my focus. My nerves thrummed about dinner for several reasons, not the least of which was that I’d never been to dinner with a man I found so attractive.
I laughed and put my face in my hands. I was the twenty-five-year-old, independently wealthy CEO of a Silicon Valley biotech company, and I was petrified about having dinner with a handsome man—irrefutable evidence that I’d spent too much time at the lab. I could easily handle intense vetting from investors and government compliance agents, but a date?
I had no idea how to handle a date. Not with Gabriel Betts.
I made myself focus. I sorted data, analyzed the trends from our recent testing, and wrote a synopsis for my board meeting the following week. Then I reviewed routine documentation: human resources reports, materials reports, and security notes.
I paused when I went through the week’s visitor log. Clive Warren, it read. He’d signed in at ten that morning.
I buzzed down to the security office. “I have a record that a Mr. Warren was on site this morning,” I said, my nerves starting to thrum. “Do you know who he met with?”
“No, Ms. Taylor, I don’t. Our guards from this morning have already changed shifts.”
