Page 72 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
Nathan grinned, his good humor making its way out again, or maybe it was Gabrielle doing that. “Nope. I’m just oversharing, that’s all, asking Hope what women like and what the hell they want. One and a half glasses of cheap white wine, one breakup, and one otherwise irresistible straight, single, employed male Manhattanite shooting himself in the foot before he can even get started, because he can’t keep his big mouth shut.”
“You got started,” she said, then picked up her wine and said, “Know whatIlike?”
“No,” Nathan said, “but I sure do want to.”
She smiled, and right then and there, there was one extra person at this table, and it was me. The pheromones were colliding in midair, playing so fast and loose thatIwas getting turned on, and I was just the bystander. “I like a man,” Gabrielle pronounced, looking at him over the rim of her glass, her smile sassy and sweet, her almond-shaped eyes gleaming, “who’s got a sense of humor. I like a man who’s willing to talk to me and knows how to tell a woman the truth. I like a man who listens to me, and who knows how to give me hisfullattention. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nathan said. “I think so.”
“You know how hard that man is to find?”
“Not hard at all,” he said. “Not tonight.”
They gazed at each other, and the moment stretched out until Gabrielle finally broke eye contact, looked at me, and said, “So. What were we talking about? Your dismal employment prospects as a fully functioning contributor at Te Mana, or Nathan’s fortunate escape?”
“Ah…“ I was sobered by the first part, but cheered by the second. “I’d rather talk about Nathan’s fortunate escape, but first…all right, I’m selfish. Am I doomed?”
Her finely chiseled face was serious, her liquid eyes sympathetic. “Yeah, baby,” she said softly. “If you were thinking this was your chance to get real and get somewhere? You are. Sorry.”
I swallowed and said, “OK. Thanks,” looked down at my water glass, then glanced at Nathan.
He’d sobered as well, and now, he said, “Do you really want to do this? The job? It’s not just a…” He hesitated.
“A what?” I asked.
He waved a hand. “Some kind of statement, some declaration of independence. ‘I am a working woman, not a toy.’”
“No,” I said. “It’s not a statement. But you’re saying that’s how it looks.”
“Well, yeah,” he said, and I saw the agreement on Gabrielle’s face as well.
“And I can’t change that?” I asked. Nathan shrugged, and I tried to laugh and said, “Hey. First world problems. ‘I must be fulfilled in my work’ and all that. I know.”
“No,” Gabrielle said. “Just life. We all care about our life. Everybody wants to be somebody.”
“Thanks.” There I went, getting weepy again. What a day. I’d gone out to forget it, and here it was, back again. “But we weren’t talking about me.”
“Shifting now,” Gabrielle said. “What caused the Serious Face, then?” she asked Nathan. “Not hers. Yours.”
His mouth twisted. “We playing, “What the Ex Said?’ I’m not going there. Guaranteed to send the new interest screaming into the night.”
“No,” she said. “It won’t. Unless it was ‘Is that all you got?’”
They smiled at each other, and Nathan said, “We’ll call that a subject for another moment. But I’m not mysterious enough, apparently, and my ‘dangerous bad boy’ needs some work.”
“Ah,” Gabrielle said with satisfaction.
“Which I might have been fairly pissed off about at the time,” he said, “but I’m feeling oddly better now.”
“So you were asking Hope,” Gabrielle guessed, “if that’s what women want? Wrong person to ask, don’t you think? Ask me instead.Idon’t. The hunt for the alpha male? No, thanks. Too much work, too much aggravation, and too manyrealbad men to get through while you search for the one with the tough shell hiding the sweet chocolate center. Like I told you—for me? I’ll take sweet all the way up to the outside. Sweet workseverytime.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it, and Nathan noticed and said, “What, he’s so sweet when he’s with you? If it’s true, I don’t want to hear it. I’ll just get depressed again.”
“Ah…” Gabrielle said. “Maybe not.” I looked in the direction of her gaze and saw him. As absolutely upright as always, the crowd around the bar parting for him like magic, no trace of a smile on his face. Headed straight for me.
“Alpha” might not work for Gabrielle, but it sure worked on me, because the tingles were right back again. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, but maybe that was because his gaze was holding mine as if he had some tractor beam locked on me, pulling me into his orbit.
I was almost dizzy. Something was going to happen tonight. Something special.
