I shake my head and bury it back into the contract in front of me to hide the grin.
We’ve been fastidiously pretending the frozen moment in the condo showing the other day didn’t happen. We’ve been meticulously avoiding the subject of real estate altogether, actually.
Which is fine, really. Because whatever that moment was, it’s a slip up. It’s a step in the wrong, the impossible, and very inappropriate direction, and that’s not a place either of us need to go.
“Look, why don’t we call it a night.” Landon stands from his desk and stretches, his crisp white button-down stretching tautly over his hard chest and broad shoulders.
“Should we grab some food?”
I shrug. “Sure, but we’re not going to your skank spot again.”
He raises a brow. “My skank spot?”
“Yeah, that place we went before where you bring all your booty calls.”
“Pardon?”
I snort. The man is not nearly as opaque as he thinks he is.
“Please, I saw right through that. The bartender knowing your drink? The hostess knowing your name? Your ‘usual table’ being the one in the corner with all the candles?”
He frowns. “I go there a lot.”
“Oh, all by yourself, huh?”
Landon says nothing, and the grin spreads across my face.
“Knew it.”
“Knew what,” he says, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He nods at the door, and I’m shouldering my bag and following him, without even really thinking about it.
“Nothing, I just know a player when I see one,” I say as we step into the elevator.
“I’m not a player.”
“Oh?”
“No. A player suggests someone who’s playing a game. There’s no games with me. I don’t have time for them.”
“So it is the place you bring dates.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t deny it either.”
His eyes flash with something hungry, and I feel a shiver run down my back. In the confined space of the elevator, the nearness of him and the subtle scent of his cologne wash over me. I swallow quickly, taking a shaky breath as I turn away from him towards the doors as we drop floor after floor.
I can’t be thinking like this. I can’t be getting flustered around him, and thinking the way he looks at me is “hungry”, or thinking about how damn attractive he is.
“Well maybe it is,” he says evenly.
I blink quickly before turning back to him. “So why’d you bring me there?”
His shoulders stiffen, and I grin. “I’m just teasing you, you know. You should lighten up a little bit.”
He holds my eyes, the faintest hint of a smile on his face as the elevator doors open.
“Anyways, I’ve changed my mind, I’m not having dinner with you again at your skank spot.”
He smirks. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope, no thank you. I’m new in town, I don’t need that sort of reputation.”
He grins.
“I will have a drink with you though.”
“At my skank spot.”
“Three conditions.”
What are you doing.
Landon gets the door of the office front lobby for me, and we step onto the street.
“A week on the job and you’re a contract wiz, huh?”
I flip him off and he grins. “Fine, I’m all ears.”
“One, we’re not sitting at that uber-romantic corner booth. We’re sitting at the bar.”
He raises his brows. “Deal. What else.”
“Two, we’re splitting the bill. I’m buying my own drinks, thank you very much.”
“I was sort of hoping you’d pick up the whole tab, actually.”
I grin.
“Is there a third condition to what was just going to be a casual bite to eat?”
I shake my head. “Nope, I guess that’s it; terms agreed upon. Lead the way.”
“You drive a hard bargain you know,” he mutters as we round the corner to the bar.
But there is a third condition, one that I’m not even saying out loud. The third condition is more for me, and it’s simple: I will be having exactly one drink, and then I’m going home.
Because rules or not, with the way he looked at me in that elevator, I don’t trust myself with more than one drink.
Even still, this is a terrible idea.
Chapter Thirteen
Landon
I sip the old fashioned in my hand, letting the subtle blend of whiskey and bitters and orange roll across my tongue. Casual drinks, a night out - this isn’t anything new for me. In fact, this is the usual for me with women.
I shouldn’t be doing it with her, though. I shouldn’t be watching her over the low flicker of the candles on the bar, sipping drinks with her.