He laughed, a sexy rumbly sound. “Why don’t you let me tell you how I see this working?”
“Please do.”
His eyes seemed to light up when she said please.
As they discussed all the possibilities of working together, she could taste the sugary-sweet flavor of a deal coming together. She wanted this one badly; she’d been chasing it for months.
And then, there it was at last—he extended a hand. “Let’s make my lingerie customers even more satisfied,” he said, as he wrapped his fingers around hers. Excitement coursed through her and she wanted to pump her fist, to shout a victorious yes to the sky. Instead, she tamped it down. She knew how to behave like a grown-up.
“I’m thrilled, Grant. Truly thrilled.”
“As am I. However,” he said, and her heart dropped because words like however had a way of tanking deals, “we need to wait a month to dive in. I’m going to be in Vietnam for most of June visiting my factories, and then Hong Kong for business, and I want to personally oversee our partnership. Which I can do properly when I return.”
Ah, well that wasn’t such a bad however. “I like that idea,” she said with a smile.
“I want to give this my full attention.”
“I would love that, too.”
He reached for her hand, and gently pressed his lips to her skin. Holy hell. Her insides fluttered from his touch. “You are a brilliant woman, Casey. I love how you pursued this deal. Your ideas and plans have been fantastic. It’ll be a pleasure to work on the business of pleasure with you.”
“That’s my favorite kind of business.” She held up her glass in a toast.
“I’ll work on the papers and send them over to you, so everything will be signed before I leave.”
“Excellent,” she said as he took a drink.
Then she noticed his glass was empty, and she signaled the bartender for another round.
When she turned her attention back to Grant, the flirty look was absent. Instead, he stared at her, an intense and somewhat chiding look in his inky blue eyes. “I like how you operate in business. But now I want to focus on other things, and as we do, you should let me order another round. I’d like to be the one to do the . . . ordering,” he said, taking time to enunciate that last word. The way he said it made it sound suggestive, a hint at something other than drinks.
“Ordering?” she said carefully.
“Yes. Ordering,” he said, his eyes blazing darkly at her, kicking off a fresh wave of heat inside her.
He raised a hand, snapped his fingers, and called the waiter. “This beautiful woman will have another martini. Make hers dirty this time. And I’ll have a gin and tonic.”
Damn, he wasn’t joking when he said he liked to order. He liked to pick and choose too, and that was exactly what Scott had said she should let a man do. So Casey didn’t protest the second martini, even though she preferred them of the French variety.
“As you wish, sir,” the waiter said and scurried off.
Grant flashed a smile at Casey, a lopsided grin that was full of charm and something else . . . something strong and commanding. “You should know that I will be thinking about you when I’m in Asia.”
She swallowed and blinked. He’d been flirty, but now he was downright direct. Perhaps her luck was changing. “You will?”
“When I return, I hope we can not only do business, but also finally spend more time together. Would you like that?”
“I would,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes.
“Excellent. Let’s make it a date in July. You can come back here, and we will have dinner together.” He moved closer, reached for a lock of her hair, and twined it around his finger. “But, let me pursue you,” he whispered.
Let me pursue you.
The words rang in her head, along with his earlier ones. Like ordering, and why don’t you let me tell you how I see this working? Then the way he liked it so much when she’d said please.
The message was loud and clear. Grant Abbot liked his women to be demure. He didn’t want an alpha female. He didn’t need a mirror to his dominant side.
Casey had no clue whatsoever how to be that woman.
She didn’t have a submissive bone in her body.
CHAPTER THREE
New Orleans, evening . . .
All through dinner she hadn’t been able to get Grant Abbot off her mind. Not as she and Nate shared an appetizer of oysters. Not as she worked her way through a delicious niçoise salad while he ate the Chilean sea bass. And not even through a round of celebratory champagne he’d ordered for them during dinner at Poisson, a small French bistro in a white¸ two-story house with large picture windows that looked out onto the bustling and busy Bourbon Street. Inside, a torch singer crooned in the corner of the restaurant.
Casey was half present¸ and half hanging out four hours ago.
She hadn’t gone into the meeting with Grant expecting anything more than the chance to close a deal. Sure, in the back of her mind she’d hoped for more. Now she had a . . . well, a potential someone. A beau, maybe? A prospective love interest? At the very least, she had a date on her calendar a month from now.
But her suitor spoke a language she barely understood, and it was one she was sure Nate could decipher. She was dying to tell him all about Grant. They’d shared plenty before, and he knew the ins and outs of her stalled romantic life. Still, she’d been looking for the right moment to spill the strange details.