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She pressed her lips together to hide what would have been a smile more enormous than the Bellagio. “Are you always this…aggressive?”
“My approach is usually all ego,” he said. “You seem to have forgotten. You’ll find no better-looking man walking around with his foot in his mouth.”
She laughed.
His irises lit up. “Nice. I made you laugh.”
“And I heard that laughter’s a good foundation for a marriage,” she added. “We’re off to a decent start.”
Another deep, stomach-coiling chuckle thundered in his chest, which made her take a half step closer to him. The person approaching them had been nowhere close to bumping into her, but Lucas’ body heat now warmed her side.
Mission accomplished.
An easy silence passed between them, one not at all dulled by the endless chime of slot machines, disappointed groans, excited shouts, and the low rumbling of simultaneous conversations.
“I could be wrong here,” he began, “but I wouldn’t be this way if I didn’t think you liked me to some degree. You seem like the type who wouldn’t give me this much of your time if you didn’t.”
The man was incredibly perceptive.
“What do you think I like about you?” she asked.
He gestured to his face. “Obviously, I’m handsome.”
“Obviously.”
“I’m glad you agree.”
He cleared his throat, and she caught a thread of a smile before it disappeared.
“And I think you like the same things about me as I do you—wit, energy, knowledge, and I’m extremely attracted to your intelligence and passion. After Greece, I felt…different. See, I went into medicine to help people, like so many of us fresh-faced med students, but over time, it became more about…appearance. But then the way you talked about your research awakened something I didn’t realize had died.”
Until now, her relationships had all served one purpose—distraction. Either she would agree to be a pretty face on a man’s arm or enter the relationship knowing her heart would never be placed on the line. Sometimes, she dated solely to go against her family’s expectations. In those relationships, not once did her heart beat.
Not like this.
Plus, there was the way Delilah talked about him. Right away, she’d gotten the sense that he was one of those people who built walls around their emotions and fortified them with asshole attitudes and moody, mysterious personas.
But the things he did, for her sister and the Baltimore community, reflected a different man from the one he portrayed. All she needed now was to run into a man with the last name Wickham spinning a tale of “Mr. Saraci’s” evil deeds.
“Let’s go to your hotel room,” she suggested. “We can play poker there. I’d like to win back my phone.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I won’t say no.”
“Good, because I’m hoping for a yes.”
“You must truly be ‘peopled out’ to suggest we go up to the room of your sworn adversary.” He sighed. “But I can’t blame you. Feels like I’ve talked to over a thousand people today.”
“Does it get tiring?”
“Yes, but a single person can help even out the exhaustion of talking to dozens of people whose names you’ll never remember.” He motioned to her. “I’m referring to you, Mrs. Saraci. In case it’s unclear.”
She wagged a finger at him. “See this? This is flirting.”
He eyed her, dragging his fingers along his jaw in a gesture that shouldn’t have been as sexy as it was.
“If you’re sure you want to go up to my room, let’s go now. If not, I still want to take you to dinner.”
“We could order room service,” she said. “We’ll eat in. If I spend any more time around large groups of people, I’ll pull my hair out.”
