Page 29 of Silver Fox Grump

His summer-sky-blue eyes assess my movements as I place an architect’s drawing in front of him, and a biodiversity report before me.

“Good girl,” he says, and this time his voice is pure sex. It flashes right to my core.

“So what’s going on here?” I ask breathlessly.

“That,” he points at my stack of papers. “Unnecessary waste of a tree’s life is making this a working lunch.” There’s a beat of silence. “But we both know it’s a date.”

11

MAISIE

I shake my head and laugh. Even I’m aware this is an unusual way to have a date.

“Now we have our facade of a working lunch in place,” he says seriously, “I want you to tell me about yourself.”

“What?” You could knock me down with a feather.

“That’s what people do on dates, no? They get to know each other. I am here, and you have my whole attention. Talk to me. Tell me anything you like.” He leans back, relaxing his body even as his mind is as alert as ever.

“Well, the Parkside development?—”

“No,” Sev cuts me off. “If that’s really the thing your heart desires to tell me, then okay. But it’s just a cover, Maisie. This isn’t actually a work meeting. It’s a date. Tell me something you’re passionate about. A hobby? Do you read, perhaps?”

I press my lips together.

He knows I read.

“Tell me what you do in the evenings when you’re not going on dates.”

Dangerous truths shimmer in the air. We’re edging too close to the truth, and I go mute. I can’t think of anything that isn’t, “I don’t dance on tables.”

His gaze doesn’t waver, and he waits with un-Sev-like patience. He doesn’t look away, or glance at the clock. He doesn’t even reach for his glass when our drinks arrive.

No, he just looks at me as though I’m the sun and he’s a terrifying overgrown Triffid plant-monster who gains energy from my presence, as I flounder and wonder what I should say.

What can I possibly say that would interest a silver fox like Severino Blackwood? Older. Billionaire. Notoriously bad-tempered mafia boss.

Stalker. Orgasm giver.

I can’t figure out what to say for around eleven-and-a-half million years, or probably a minute.

Sev, meanwhile, seems happier by the second. He relaxes. The scowl that I thought was chiselled into his brow melts away. And I swear... Is he smiling? Just the tiniest upturn of his generous mouth. A secret little smile that I feel is only for me.

Is this how he looks when he watches me on those cameras I found in my apartment?

And suddenly, I have my voice. I’ve been longing to have someone to tell about my opinions on a really popular vampire book series, and Sev is offering to listen.

I tell him. Everything. And he listens with all the appearance of loving this. I’d be incredulous, except that I don’t think my boss can act.

Our food arrives, and I talk with my mouth full. Sev eats too, slowly. He barely glances at it, cutting the bloody steak without a care for the proximity of his fingers to a sharp knife. Whenever I pause, he interjects with a question, luring me out.

I wanted to be seen? I wanted a man to pay attention to me? Sev pays attention like there will be a life-or-death test at the end of the meal.

For my mother, I was always the audience for whatever drama was happening to her. I didn’t mind it. She wasn’t interested in my dull little stories from school when she could tell me about her own troubles. It never occurred to me to question that. And when my mother was ill, everything was about her.

My father is profoundly uninterested in anything I say or do.

I don’t know how, but talking about books slides into telling him about myself. I don’t even know what Sev says to prompt it, but I tell him about my mother’s death, and my father’s controlling behaviour when I moved in with him at sixteen.