AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Eight
It was no easy task, but Ian had finally gotten the upper hand. At least for the moment. It was a damn good feeling. His working group in London included four unique women. They were all highly educated and very smart, but none of them had Bella’s extraordinary combination of intellect, wit, and charm.
She would lead some man a merry dance someday.
Oddly, the thought of Bella getting married disturbed him. It would take a special man to live up to her challenging personality. She was brilliant, intuitive, and actually had the people skills so many advanced minds lacked. It would be a crime for her to end up with a guy who didn’t appreciate her unusual range of gifts. Even worse, what if she fell for some Neanderthal who wanted to hold her back?
It would be sinful for Bella to hide her light under a bushel. Anyone as multi-dimensional as Finley’s sister deserved a partner who would encourage her to follow her potential and interests wherever they led her.
She cocked her head and stared at him. “I don’t know what to say about your last comment. Is that what bothers you? You’re afraid the notoriety from the magazine article will have women pursuing you for all the wrong reasons?”
“That’s already happening. I told you about London, remember?”
“Ah. Yes.” She nodded slowly. “Well, trust me. It might be aggravating to have women hurling themselves at you, but with or without the fame, a guy like you can’t really fly under the radar.”
“A guy like me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me say it. You’re man candy.”
He bristled. “I most certainly am not.” The idea was ludicrous. He wasn’t physically repulsive, but he had never been the bloke who went to bed with a different woman every day of the week.
“It’s not an insult,” she said mildly.
“I think you meant it to be,” he said slowly. “You were trying to get a rise out of me. The same as if I called you arm candy.”
“That would be dumb.”
“So what we have here is two reasonably pleasant-looking human beings who have thus far in their lives never been the kind to attract interest from the opposite sex. Is that it?”
“I haven’t had men mailing their underwear to me,” she pointed out triumphantly, as if this were some kind of backward competition.
He felt his ears turn red. “I told you. It’s the damn article. The writer made me sound like a cross between a playboy billionaire and Bill Gates.”
“Bill Gates isn’t sexy.”
“I know that!” He pounded his fist on the table. “It makes no sense.” All the frustrations of the past three weeks bubbled up inside him. The loss of privacy. The inevitable ribbing from his colleagues. The feeling that something had been taken from him.
The madder he got, the more his self-control winnowed away. He was confused and horny and miles outside his comfort zone. After his outburst, Bella subsided into silence, her eyes round with astonishment.
At last, she relaxed and leaned forward to pat his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said softly. “Soon, some real celebrity will have an affair with a space alien. Or maybe a big-time athlete will be caught rigging a sporting event. If you’re really lucky, Prince Harry might get engaged. Then all your worries will be over. You’ll be yesterday’s news, and life can get back to normal.”
She gazed at him with a mixture of compassion and impish mischief. If he were extremely analytical, he would have to admit that she wasn’t beautiful according to the traditional rubric most men used as a scale. She was neither blond nor willowy. Her breasts were average. Her nose was a trifle too strong for her small face. And her teeth were the tiniest bit crooked, as if her difficult father had never been willing to shell out for braces, or maybe the orthodontist was a quack.
“Are you interested in having sex with me?” The words tumbled from his mouth unbidden, born of some deep, aching need in his gut.
Bella didn’t respond at all for at least thirty seconds. Her pupils dilated, her breathing escalated, and she paled. He saw her throat work as she swallowed. “It’s not that bad, Ian. Honest. Why don’t you run up to your room and invent something? That will cheer you right up. Maybe an app that helps people survive in the wilderness. Something like that…”
“I wasn’t kidding,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want to be with you so I can cheer up.”
“Are you saying I’m boring?”
He ground his teeth and counted to ten. “You’re exasperating and argumentative and frustrating as hell. But…”
“But?”
This was it. He and Bella had reached a point of no return. Either they acted on the inconvenient, stomach-clenching desire that pulsed between them, or he had to leave. “I’ve always known I’m not the kind of guy who will likely get married. I would never be able to remember to take out the trash. When I’m working, I forget to eat most days. Children are a mystery to me. My father was remote and cold. I would never want to cause emotional harm to a baby because I happened to be too wrapped up in a project to be present.”
Bella blinked. “I think I missed something. Do I strike you as the kind of woman who needs a man to take out the trash?”
