Susan Mallery - The Substitute Millionaire

“What’s wrong with the number after my name?”

“Nothing. It’s lovely. I always have to skip over that box when I’m registering on Internet sites, but you get to stop and put in a big three.”

“The three isn’t actually that big. It’s the same size as all the other numbers. It wants to be big, of course, but unfulfilled fantasies are a reality of life. Three has to get used to that.”

Charming, she thought happily. The man was completely charming.

The waiter appeared with their drinks. When he’d left, Todd held up his glass.

“To the unexpected pleasure of a smart, funny, beautiful woman,” he said.

Okay, that was a line, but she was having enough fun that she would accept it in the spirit she hoped he meant it.

“Thank you.” She touched her glass to his.

Somehow she misjudged and their fingers brushed. It was nothing—a brief, meaningless bit of contact. But she was oddly aware of it. Her sister Willow would tell her it was the universe giving her a message and that she should listen to it. Her sister Marina would want to know if Todd was “the one.”

“So what do you do?” she asked.

He set down his glass. “I skywrite. You know, those horrible messages people are always leaving each other in the clouds. Barney Loves Cathy. John, Bring Home Milk.”

She took another sip of her drink and waited.

He sighed. “I’m a partner in a venture capital firm. We buy into small businesses, shower them with money and expertise until they’re big companies, then sell them to someone else and make an obscene amount of profit. It’s disgusting. I should be ashamed.”

She laughed. “I would have thought you’d be running the family foundation.”

“There’s a professional board that takes care of that. I’d rather build than give away.”

“Sounds ruthless,” she teased.

“I can be. Very. People tend to underestimate me because of the number after my name. They assume I’m useless. I’m not.”

She believed him. Funny, powerful and very easy to look at. Especially now, when he stared at her so intently. She sensed she had his full attention—which was both thrilling and a little scary.

“But then they underestimate you, too,” he added.

“You know this how?”

“Because I did. I assumed human-rights law when you said you were working internationally.”

“It’s a guy thing,” she said. “The assumption that women will go for emotion rather than business.”

“You get that a lot.” He wasn’t asking a question.

“Yes, but I don’t mind. I use it. My career is very important to me. The first few years in a big law firm can be tough. I want to get ahead, but I was raised to do the right thing. So I’ll take the advantage of being underestimated and run with it.”

“Ruthless?” he asked.

“I flirt with ruthless, but we’ve never actually been a couple.”

Their gazes locked. Until that moment, Julie had been enjoying her drink and the company, but suddenly tension crackled around them. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She’d thought Todd would be prissy and he’d thought she would be an idiot. Instead she found herself rethinking her plan of no involvements until after her second year at the law firm ended. While she didn’t have a lot of spare time, with the right incentive, she could make an exception.

She liked that he was smart and cynical and still paid attention to what his aunt Ruth had to say. She liked his smile and the interest flickering in his dark eyes.

For the first time in a really long time, she felt a warmth between her thighs. Good to know that part of her wasn’t completely dead.

“Tell me about the women in your life,” she said.

He’d been drinking and nearly choked. “I didn’t bring pictures.”

“That’s all right. A brief overview is plenty. I’ll pass on the résumés this time.”

“You’re so generous.” He set down his glass. “There were the twins…”

She smiled. “You don’t do twins and I don’t scare that easily.”

“All right. No one serious at the moment.” He frowned. “Make that no one at the moment. A difficult breakup last year. No ex-wives, no ex-fiancées. You?”

“One ex-fiancé from my last year of law school. No one now.”

“What happened to the fool?”

Julie might not be on the dating circuit, but she knew when to sidestep a topic. There was no point in getting into her sad little story. “Things didn’t work out.”

The waiter appeared and asked if they had any questions about the menu.

“As that would have required us to look at them,” Todd said as he grinned at her, “not yet. But we’ll work on it.”

Julie waited until they were alone and said, “Why bother with a menu? You’re going to order steak, close to rare, and a salad. Not because you want one, but because if you don’t eat a vegetable, people will think you weren’t raised right.”

He raised his left eyebrow. “You’ll want the steak, but there’s the whole ‘women don’t eat on dates’ thing, so you’ll get fish, which you don’t really like.” He picked up his glass. “I take that back. You do like fish—but only in a beer batter, deep fried, with fries on the side.”

“I like tuna,” she said primly.

“Something from a can doesn’t count.”

She laughed. “All right, you win. I’ll get the steak and even eat it, but you can’t tell.”

“Fair enough. And I’ll order the damn salad.” He leaned toward her. His dark gaze locked on hers. “I expected to be bored.”

“Me, too. I also thought I’d feel morally and intellectually superior.”

He grinned. “I’m comfortable with the moral superiority.”

“But I can’t be smarter?”

“I’m a pretty smart guy.”

She shifted in her seat as the temperature in the room seemed to climb about sixteen degrees.

She reached for her drink, but before she could pick it up, he captured her hand in his. His fingers were warm and strong as he rubbed her knuckles. Jolts of awareness moved up her arm and from there zipped to all sorts of interesting places in her body. She felt languid and wholly feminine—an unusual combination for her. Normally she went for in charge and intimidating.

“I have a technical question,” he said as he shifted his hand so his thumb could rub against the center of her palm. “It’s about my aunt Ruth.”

“Which is?”

“She’s your grandmother.”

“That’s the rumor,” Julie said, trying to keep her mind on the conversation rather than getting lost in the need stealing through her. She told herself her reaction to Todd was more about the fact that she hadn’t been on a date in over eighteen months than anything he was doing. The problem was, she couldn’t seem to convince herself.

“If she’s my great-aunt and your grandmother,” he said. “That makes us…”

Ah, okay. She understood his concern. “Unrelated. She was your great-uncle’s second wife. They didn’t have any children together. She made it a point to explain all that. She didn’t tell you?”

He withdrew his hand and sat up. “No. She didn’t.”

“Now you know.” Speaking of Grandmother Ruth, Julie was going to have to send her a big thank-you when she got home.

“Now, I do.” He stood and held out his hand to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Inviting you to dance.”

Dance? As in…dance? She hadn’t done that since high school, and even then she hadn’t been very good.

“They don’t have dancing here,” she said, staying firmly in her seat.

“Of course they do. And now that I know we’re not cousins, let’s dance.”

She was torn between the fear of making a fool out of herself and the thrill of pressing her body against his. Because now that she’d bothered to notice, she could hear soft, slow music in the background. It sounded nice, but it wasn’t nearly as tempting as the man standing in front of her.