Katherine Garbera - Their Million-Dollar Night

“Did you mean it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She smiled at him then and her expression was so…tender that his heart almost broke. “That wasn’t silly, Max. It was very sweet.”

“Ah, hell, God save me from being sweet. You’re supposed to look at me and think, What a sexy guy. Not a sweet man.” But he liked that she thought of him that way. No one had ever seen him in that light before. They’d called him ruthless, determined and successful, but never sweet.

“Can’t you be both?”

“I don’t know, can I?” he counted.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Her words—that she wasn’t ready to date—echoed in his mind as he held her. Hell, neither was he, but holding her soothed that bit of loneliness that had been echoing through his soul.

“I’m not sure this is on the approved list of acceptable activities between a VIP and his hostess.”

“Your boss is one of my best friends, so I think I know how to make this right.”

“For you?”

He realized again that he was moving too fast. Her comment still ticked him off because he’d always been the kind of man that others respected. “No, Roxy, for you and when you know me better I’ll expect an apology for that.”

“I’m sorry. I’m much better at light social talk, or performing up on the stage where I can’t say the wrong things.”

“You didn’t say the wrong thing.”

“Yes, I did. I offended you.”

“I get offended daily.”

“How?”

“Usually from investors of rival companies. Or the board of directors of a company that I want to take over. Sometimes from my second in command, but he says that’s to keep my ego in check.”

“He’s your friend, then?”

Max thought about Duke and nodded. “Yes. He saved my life once.”

“Did you repay him?” she asked, with a shrewdness he wished she didn’t have.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t let that kind of debt languish.”

“Have you ever let any debt languish?”

“No, I haven’t. I like to keep things even,” he said lightly because he knew that he really preferred to keep the balance tipped toward him. To make sure that he was the one who did just a bit more in a relationship.

“But you’re bossy. So I’m guessing that you like to be in charge all the time.”

He shrugged his shoulder. “What can I say? I run an international conglomerate. I have to lean toward the type-A personality.”

“Just in business?”

He shook his head, uncomfortable pursuing this topic. “You were going to tell me what you were lucky at.”

“I was?”

“Yes, you were.”

“Is that an order?”

She was sassing him. And he liked it, but he gave her a quelling stare. One that always made the office staff jump through hoops for him.

“I’m not intimidated,” she said. “But I will tell you what I’m lucky at….”

She paused and he waited for her to continue.

“I’m lucky in being alive. Now, if I can just remember how to live.”

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