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But it wasn’t and she couldn’t understand it. How eleven years of hard-won control had just suddenly melted as if it had never been there in the first place.
They walked into the hotel in total silence, then took the elevator to their floor. The double doors to the terrace were open, a wash of pink evening light painting the living area.
She walked through the suite and outside. The table was set for two, a bottle of sparkling grape juice in an ice bucket, wrapped in a linen towel as if it were fine champagne. And their plates were covered with a silver dome, everything set and ready.
As though Alex had wanted to make sure they weren’t disturbed.
“This is romantic,” she said, her tone about as dry as sand.
“Is it?” he looked around as though the notion surprised him. “I just asked for dinner for two and that we not be disturbed. For privacy’s sake, as we are discussing personal matters and you are a bit of a public figure. Romance never came into it.”
“Naturally not. Come to think of it, you aren’t much of a romantic, are you?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never had much practice with it. But I would like to think I romanced you that night we were together.”
“You seduced me. Completely different. I wasn’t looking for romance.”
“So you were looking for sex?”
“No,” she said. “But I think that’s why it worked.”
She sat down and grabbed the bottle out of the bucket, eyeing the cork warily. “It has a cork.”
“Yes.”
“These things freak me out. You do it.” She handed him the bottle and he took it, working the metal cage off the cork so that it popped up. She winced at the sound. “Gah. I always expect it to fly out and poke someone in the eye.”
He laughed. “Not likely. But then, caution isn’t a bad thing.”
“That’s certainly been my motto in life.”
He arched a brow as he poured her a glass of the sparkling juice.
“It has been. For...a while. Because...because bad things happen to you when you put yourself out there, you know?”
He nodded slowly. “No,” he said, the words at odds with the gesture. “I don’t. Because I never put myself out there.”
“So you never have girlfriends, do you?”
“No. One-night-stand stuff. Sometimes women who hang around for a couple of weekends. Nothing more than that.”
Strangely, it didn’t really bother her to hear him say that. She would have been more disturbed in some ways if there had been a woman in his life that he loved.
And she really didn’t want to know why that was.
Silly since she’d been in love before. Even if it had turned out badly. Sillier still because she didn’t love Alex and she didn’t want him to love her, either. But nothing about her feelings for him were logic-centered. None at all.
“That seems smart,” she said. “I mean, in some ways. It wouldn’t really work for me, I bet, because the guys would go to the press.” She hadn’t meant to tread that close to the truth of her past.
