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He considered her mouth, then sweater, then jeans. “You know this is a classic female trap—accusing me of insulting you when I’m tryingnotto.”
“I’m so glad you finally have the proof you need that I am female,” she said sweetly, walking around him to toss away the apple core, giving him plenty of clearance…aware of his eyes following the sway of her body. She poured herself a glass of water and grabbed the small bottle on the counter.
“Believe me, I don’t need proof. I know exactly how female you are.”
Paula used swallowing down her morning vitamin to mask the adrenaline surge that gave her. “So what is the problem here? What is the basis of this insult?”
His mouth turned up in a slant. “Kissing.”
She carefully laid the glass on the counter. “Did you say…”
“The basis is kissing, Paula. Putting my mouth on you. Something tells me you’d take it as an insult if I tried it.”
She stared at him for a few beats, then shook her head, chuckling. “You’re lying.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Hmm, wow, I don’t know, maybe because you just spent the last who knows how many months showing me how little interest you have in knowing me?”
He began to smile. “Come over here and find out how interested I am in you.”
It was officially sizzling in here, and not a thing was wrong with her thermostat. “I don’t know what you think you’re up to, mister—”
“Bastian.”
“Fine, Bastian, but I promise you this is not the way to get me to be your fake date.”
“Fake?” He blinked. “What’s fake about it?”
“Last time I checked, when a guy asks a woman out, there’s none of this ‘I will give you X in exchange for Y’ nonsense. That’s called doing business. Especially when they’re not even...” she motioned between them, “doing that together.”
Only when she came up against the back of the loveseat did she realize she’d been steadily retreating. She was acting like a dizzy virgin. All because Bastian Spencer’s smile, his doggedattitudewere waging a major seductive assault on her senses.
It must be something in the air. She simply wasn’t this susceptible. Not to any man, and certainly not to some stiff-upper-lip pretty-boy user who ran his social life as a series of bargains and exchanges.
Hey, at least he doesn’t act like he thinks he’s God’s gift to womankind.
The voice in her head reminded her that Bastian wasn’t Ryan the Dingbat. Last year she’d gotten quite fond of her boyfriend with his attentive ways until he turned out to be a cretin and a sneaky bastard.
Superficially there were similarities. Ryan was white, tall and had the sexy jaw thing going on, though he was dark blond and a fellow programmer with a much more relaxed attitude toward fashion than Bastian here. But Ryan too had tried to use her.
She hadn’t known that until the end. Their last date together, under the influence of too many Long Island Iced Teas, he’d blurted that he’d only braved asking her out because he knew she had a hard time getting dates. When she asked what on earth he was talking about, he’d pointed and slurred, “You know, you being dark.”
That entered the weird zone, but she had no idea how weird at first. “You mean black?”
“No, dark. How dark you are. Not just black.”
“Wait a minute.” After an almost comical back-and-forth, she discovered that her boyfriend was living in a fantasy world of the non-literary variety. “You think being deep-shaded, I have a hard time getting dates?”
He’d stammered, “Well, don’t you?” and she’d laughed. “Um, Ryan, so, this is basic inductive reasoning here.Think. Given the existence of past boyfriends in my life, then you would conclude that you, yourself, are not an outlier, but a hopeful. Specific to the general, buddy. Study up.”
She’d stood up to leave. And that’s when he grabbed her arm and started rambling, admitting he’d hoped dating someone prominent in the industry would give him a chance at promotion, and Paula being established, popular and a prodigy looked good on his social media. He’d shown her his phone and his boasts. “See?Me and Paula Raymond, Database Innovations Award winner. My GF giving a talk.I get respect now,” he crowed, and added that he’d truly thought she’d be grateful to date him, because he was—he'd lowered his voice here—white.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Insecureandconniving, with a side of delusion. Congratulations, Ryan. You just earned my dingbat label. Smile.”
“Oh, shit, Paula! You wouldn’t—”
“Using my name and photos like that? Oh, yes, I would.” And she’d whipped out her phone right there.
