without any emotion crossing his handsome features.
Damon contemplated the beautiful woman sitting across from him and considered various ways to answer her question. He reminded himself of his ultimate goal and his promise to himself to take it more slowly, to play this game differently and be more aware of her sensibilities. “You don’t think I saw you across the room and instantly knew you’d be perfect for my wife?”
She watched him closely and thought about his words. Something about them rang true and she nodded. “Yes. I don’t know if it was a room or some other venue, but yes. I believe that you made a very logical decision based off of some equation that works in your mind. You’ve mentioned that you went through an agency. Can you tell me what your direction to the agency was? Are you willing to tell me that much at least?”
“No.”
She felt deflated but determined to persevere. She looked down at the napkin resting on her lap and forced her brain to figure out a different way to get the information she needed. Something that would help her understand him better. “Okay. How about this, what kinds of women have you dated in the past?”
Damon saw one of his acquaintances approaching and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t want to be interrupted. The man caught the signal and turned, ensuring that Damon had the privacy he needed for this conversation.
“They were beautiful, just like you. Poised, accomplished in whatever field they’d chosen…” he slowed at the end, not sure how to explain that they’d basically chosen him instead of the other way around. When he was at a function, women recognized him and approached him without any encouragement on his end. If he was mildly interested and had the time to play their game, he would take them up on their obvious suggestions, some spoken, some not but all the women were blatantly obvious about their intentions. All his previous relationships had been sexual with nothing else possible between his partners. They’d understood his terms, even if they’d all wished for, and some even subtly suggested, a more permanent situation. He’d dismissed all of them without qualms. When the heat had fizzled with one woman, he immediately started looking for another. It wasn’t until Eva’s picture had arrived on his conference room table that he’d thought of a woman as more than just a temporary diversion.
Or, to be more correct, it wasn’t until he’d met her, got to know her and felt more than just a passing interest, that his intentions had changed. Her picture in the file had caught his eye. Her hell for nothing temper and unrelenting passion for all things had captured his interest.
He couldn’t tell her that. Damon knew this beautiful, vibrant woman wouldn’t appreciate being chosen out of a set of five pictures simply because her head shot had caught his attention.
She blinked, waiting for more but when he stopped and simply looked across the table at her, she realized that he’d just told her everything he was going to say. It wasn’t enough. She couldn’t go through her rolodex of friends to find him a new fiancée without more information. “What personality traits do you look for when choosing a woman to date? Surely some of the women you’ve been with in the past might have been appropriate wife material. Couldn’t you give me a clue what they might have been like? You don’t need to give me names, just things that they did or didn’t do that made you date them.”
He dealt with the first because the last would be a bit too volatile. “You’re self-confident, you know how to handle a room full of people with grace and dignity, you seem to be a very good hostess which can help my business grow.”
Eva waited for the waiter to put their meals down in front of them and leaving before she continued. This wasn’t a discussion that the wait staff at the restaurant needed to overhear. “You don’t need your business to grow.”
“Everyone needs to grow.”
“How much are you worth? Right now?”
He almost laughed at her matter of fact tone. No one had dared to ask him that. They just looked up other peoples’ estimates on the internet or in magazines. He was regularly featured in the top ten wealthiest men in the world so it wasn’t as if someone would need to dig too deeply to find out his estimated net worth. “Right