Page 76 of The Invitation

“Seduction?”

“Isn’t that what this is? To get me into bed?”

“Amelia, I could have had you in bed the first time we met.”

“Are you saying I’m easy?”

“No.” He sighs, his body language screaming uncomfortable. “I’m saying I’m really—”

“Good at seducing women?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth,” he snaps, and I withdraw, stung. He breathes out, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “I’m saying I’m really into you.”

“I don’t understand, Jude. You worked your arse off to make me surrender, and yet all the opportunities you’ve had to sleep with me you’ve passed up.”

He falls back in his chair, exasperated. “I don’t want you to think I’m nothing but a fuckboy.”

I inhale. Shit. Isn’t that exactly what I need him to be? A one-track-mind man. A man I can depend on not wanting more than I want to give? And there’s my problem. Jude feels ... different. This is all new. And he seems to want a lot of me.

“Why me?” I ask quietly.

“Aside from the fact I fancy the knickers off you?”

I hold back my grin. Just. “Aside from that.”

“You’re smart, obviously very ambitious.” He hitches an amused brow. “Determined.”

I laugh a little. “My determination has been squashed since I met you.”

“Determination to avoid me?”

“Exactly.”

“Why do you want to avoid me?”

I press my lips together. I don’t want to talk about my ex. I also don’t want to tell Jude that I’m scared of going too deep with him. “This is ... intense.”

“You’re scared.”

“Wary,” I counter, and he nods thoughtfully as he plays with the stem of his glass. “So aside from the attraction, how smart I am, and the fact I was a very determined woman before I met Jude Harrison, what else is there?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

“Just trying to understand what I’m getting myself into.”

His eyes squint, and for a moment I think he’s flinched. Then he smiles. “I sense my wealth is of no consequence to you, given you didn’t know who I actually was until recently.”

Was that a ploy on his part? He said earlier he doesn’t get attention from the right women.Gold diggers.And has that been a past problem for him? “You don’t know that for sure,” I say casually, taking my champagne and sipping. “I might marry you, stake a claim on your fortune, then file for divorce.”

He laughs lightly, and the sound has me a quivering wreck, the light fans at the corners of each eye making them twinkle madly. “You’d marry me?”

Whoa.“Hold your horses, champ.”

“Champ?”

“Casanova?”

“How about Jude. Plain and simple Jude.”

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