Tempting the CEO(23)

“You and everybody else who meets us,” I couldn’t help putting in.

“Jed looks exactly like his father.”

“Where is he again?” I asked just to bug Jed, even though I knew already. Why should I be the only uncomfortable one here?

“Oh, in the South of France now, I think. We’re never quite sure. On his I-don’t-know-what-number rich older wife. Living off his looks, which have been remarkably resilient,” she commented while Jed ordered a very fine red wine.

“Good genes,” I said.

And then she dropped the A-bomb. “Have you two set a date?”

Jed shook his head ruefully. “She cannot help herself.”

“I don’t believe in beating around the bush, Angie. I’ll tell you straight I’ve barely ever met a single girlfriend of Jed’s, or if I do, she’s gone in a week, he goes through them so fast.”

“That is so reassuring,” I said between my teeth, and she surprised me by laughing.

“I know. I was just about giving up on grandchildren unless there was a DNA test involved or something. Until he meets you and right away I can see he’s a goner.”

“Mom, for Christ’s sake.”

As much as I was eating this all up, I decided to bring us back to the real world. “Your son’s wonderful, Mrs.— Mary, but we’ve only known each other six months.”

“See, Mom, now you’ve blown it. I had a ring and everything. You’re so not invited to the wedding.”

I shook my head as his mother’s mouth dropped open. “He’s kidding,” I said.

“Maybe,” he singsonged.

“Be nice to your mother,” I scolded as he grinned at me. I knew he was just needling her and tried to keep up a stern face, but as ever, he charmed me. From that first interlude at the ice machine, he had charmed me. It was hard to stay mad at Jed.

Of course his mother had much more practice.

She scowled at him again, then said, “Excuse me. I’m going to the restroom.”

He called after her, “You better not be texting Natalie.”

I slapped him on the arm when we were alone, but I did think it was funny. His mom’s desperate quest for a daughter-in-law and Jed’s tongue-in-cheek resistance to it.

“What?” he said. “We both have kind of supersize mothers.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what that says for us.”

“I love you.”

He’d never said it before, and for a second I was furious that he had the gall to say it for the very first time in the middle of a dinner with his mother instead of when the two of us were alone, in bed maybe. Or at least over a romantic candlelit dinner, again alone.

“I love you,” he repeated for good measure. “I think I loved you from the minute I saw you hand Bob his head on a plate.”

“Like I believe that.” I managed to keep my tone level, the same as it always was in our usual teasing banter. But my pulse was racing and my face felt hot. I unknotted the Chanel scarf around my neck and tossed it on the back of my chair.

I love you.

Wow.

I was using the wine list to fan myself when he captured my hand and kissed it softly.

It was a lot to digest, and automatically I stuck to the banter. “You better not have a ring in your pocket.”

“You’ll never know, because my mom ruined the moment.”

I snatched my hand back. “You are so full of it.”

Maybe I should have gone to the restroom too. I felt overwhelmed all of a sudden.

Happy. Overwhelmed because I was happy.

He loves me.

He leaned forward and thrust his hand in my hair and his tongue in my mouth and kissed me, as deeply as was probably legal in public. It felt familiar and hot and wildly special with what he had just blurted out.

We were never getting a waiter over to this table until his mom came back to chaperone.

When he had thoroughly proved yet again how much I was putty in his hands on the sexual thing, he said, “And we can discuss this later tonight or next month or not at all. But I’m not going anywhere. I love you and I know—”

“Do not say it!” I warned, meaning it, too. If he just presumed I loved him too and said it—although, God of course I did—I was stomping right out of here. Talk about high-handed.

“I wasn’t going to say you love me. No way!” He leaned back. “I’m going to make you say it.”

I grinned at him this time. And I was sure he could do it, too. But not now. I had that much pride left in me at least, didn’t I?

“And as for my mother, it’d serve her right if I made her fly home commercial, right now, tonight.”

“It’s not her fault. I kind of like her. I mean, that she’s so blunt about everything,” I said, making him laugh.