Maybe it was a natural New York complex. So much time was spent being in stop-and-go traffic or waiting for a subway—not that Luke ever rode the subway—that when they finally did get out of the city, they needed to get some of their speed demons out.
But that didn’t make the eighty-five miles an hour he was going legal. Or less terrifying. “You do know I carry a gun, right?” she asked as he passed a driver going the perfectly normal speed limit.
“I have a lot of things to get done today.”
“And you will get them done a lot faster if you’re alive,” she pointed out.
He glared at her from over his sunglasses but lifted his foot off the gas just a bit.
“There you go. Happy?”
“I’m happy I’m not dead. Besides, there are eggs in the back. Please don’t ruin my chance of having a pancake breakfast,” she said. They’d stopped at a grocery store outside of the city to pick up supplies to stock the mostly empty cabinets of his Hamptons home. She looked back to her empty notebook. There was nothing she could do without her laptop at the moment, but it made her feel better to have something in front of her.
“You won’t have to deal with my driving much longer.”
“Good.” Evelyn let out a deep sigh and looked out the window. Just a short drive until she and Luke were trapped together alone in his cozy little cottage. Of course, cozy for Luke was probably over four thousand square feet.
But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know what was going to happen there. The kiss at her apartment. The affectionate way he’d said goodnight. The touching in his kitchen that morning. No. When they got to the Hamptons, Luke wasn’t going to stop with a chaste kiss, and Evelyn didn’t think she would try to stop him.
One last hurrah before going back to Texas. Or maybe multiple hurrahs before going back to Texas. The whole thing seemed so...certain. But wholly inconvenient.
She’d had a one-night stand before. An agent in from out of town for a week. They’d hit it off, gone back to his place, and after a good time, she’d slipped out at three in the morning and never spoken of it again. Neat and over. She had a feeling whatever she was getting into with Luke would be messy and definitely last longer than one night.
“Did you tell Cali where we were going? I would hate for all this to mess with you running the company.”
“Not yet. She was off on her romantic weekend, so I’m trying to not mess things up for her. But Monday morning she’ll have the wonderful surprise of rearranging my whole schedule.”
“Give her the weekend and screw her over Monday? Nice.”
“I know Cali. If I tell her now, she’ll spend half the day working. And once she gets started rearranging the schedule, she’ll see something else that needs to be done. She’s a workaholic. Which I love about her, but I don’t want to destroy her life. And...” He trailed off, and glanced around the road.
“And what?”
“She already wants to leave. If I mess up her work-life balance any more, I don’t think I can hold onto her much longer.”
“Luke Devereaux being possessive? I don’t believe it.”
“Good help is hard to find. If I can keep her with me for another year, I’ll take it.”
“Well, she seems to like you for some strange reason. So you’ve got that going for you.”
“Life was much easier when women weren’t ambitious.” Luke shot her a look to see her reaction.
“Oh, come on. Women were always ambitious. We just used to have to pretend we weren’t. Or convince the menfolk that it was their idea.”
“I guess I can’t fight you on that one. Lord help the man who ends up with you whispering in his ear.”
“Well, I talk dirty, so I haven’t had many complaints.” The second she said the words, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. As though Luke needed any opening to talk about sex.
And from the way he suddenly clenched the steering wheel, she had a feeling he hadn’t missed her slipup. “You talk dirty?”
“No! I was just talking out of my ass,” she quickly clarified. “Really, I didn’t mean anything...”
“Maybe you just need someone to teach you how to do it then,” said Luke in a deep, husky voice.
Evelyn fidgeted in her seat, her jeans suddenly seeming too tight and the car too hot. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted Luke to turn around and hightail it back to the city or whether she wanted him to drive faster.
She looked out the window and took a deep breath. Maybe it would be best if she could just keep her mouth shut for the rest of the drive. Hell, the rest of the weekend.