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She hesitated, then asked, “And do you mind me asking about your father?”
“Never met him.” He was careful to keep his voice even. “My mom raised me by herself until she met Wesley when I was ten.”
Another frown marred her smooth brow. Dean read her expression and downed the rest of his wine in one swallow. It slid down his throat and settled in his stomach. “Don’t go feeling sorry for me, I don’t care. My mom is great. So is Wesley. He’s a lawyer and has given me lots of invaluable advice and moral support over the years.”
She nodded, and as they finished eating, thankfully she didn’t pursue the subject. Talking about his biological father when there was no hope of the conversation solving anything made no sense to him.
When Antonio returned, Dean echoed Gina’s request for a take-home box, and also ordered a piece of Tiramisu and Limonchello Bread Pudding.
“Oh, no. I can’t eat another bite.”
“Box them up, then,” he told the waiter. “We’ll have them with lunch tomorrow.”
Gina grinned. “Now that I can do.”
On the way out, he decided to take advantage of their newfound camaraderie to find out the answer to something he’d been wondering about since Saturday night. He set their leftovers and dessert in the back seat on the passenger side before grabbing her burgundy sweater from where he’d tossed it a couple days ago.
Straightening, he shut the door and faced her. “You ever going to tell me what that kiss in the club was all about?”
She groaned and reached to swipe the sweater from his hands. “It would be nice if you could just forget all about that.”
He held on when she pulled. “Sorry, that might’ve worked on Mike, but even if I wanted to, forgetting that kiss is never going to happen.”
Despite the dim light on the street, color was evident in her cheeks. “Fine. It was a dare. My friend Jayne said I needed to show Jackson I’d moved on and dared me to pick a…guy…and kiss him.”
“Ouch.” He laid his palm over his heart as if she’d just wounded him. And she kinda had. “That’s so random. You could’ve just as easily picked Mike over me.”
“I could have,” she confirmed with a teasing grin.
Now his ego was gasping for breath. He released the material in his hands in mock disgust. “Well, damn it. The whole thing is ruined now.”
“Oh, please. Somehow, I think you’ll recover just fine.”
She turned and reached for the door, but he extended a hand to keep her from opening it. He moved in closer and trapped her against the vehicle with his other hand on the opposite side of her. Her startled gaze rose to meet his, and that beguiling violet hue sucked him right in.
“Fix it,” he murmured. “I dare you.”
Chapter 11
Oh, God, he was daring her to kiss him again. After the time they’d spent together, and the memory of his lips on hers, she clenched her fingers in the material of her sweater to check her immediate impulse to grab his jacket and drag his long, hard body against hers.
“I’m not fixing anything,” she managed in a relatively normal voice. “I didn’t make you ask the question, and it’s not my fault you didn’t like the answer.”
His warm brown gaze held hers a moment longer, then he shook his head with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. “I thought you were braver than that.”
Nope, she was a big chicken. Even more so when it came to him, because despite knowing he was probably using her, in just one single evening, she was beginning to really like him. But he would be twice as dangerous to her heart as Jackson, and she was nowhere near ready for those consequences.
She lifted her chin. “I’m as brave as I need to be when the situation calls for it.”
With a wry grin, Dean shifted sideways and reached behind her for the door handle. She quickly scooted out of the way so he could open the door, then hopped inside. As she took a couple deep breaths to steady her racing heart, her gaze tracked his progress around the front of the vehicle.
If the man had any clue how tempted she was to accept his dare, he’d have kissed her anyway. And she’d have been lost.
He got in and started the vehicle without a word. A swirling mix of relief and disappointment left her with no clue what to say, and he didn’t seem to feel a need to fill the silence as he drove. Other than the radio on low, quiet reigned until he turned into the parking lot of the building that housed her rented office.
As he slowed to a stop by her car, she unfastened her seatbelt and started to reach for the door handle.
Before she could pull the lever, he said, “I suppose I should apologize—”
