“Take us home, Butch.”
“Yours, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Understood, Mr. Mitropoulos.”
The privacy window slid up behind Butch as the limo pulled away from the curb. And when Paul finally turned his full attention to her—
“Don’t think you’ve won this round!”
The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them, her logic overpowered by her—well—annoyance.
Unfortunately, it only had the billionaire looking at her with a painfully bored expression.
“Don’t start.”
“Don’t start what?”
“Lying to yourself.” He stretched one arm along the back of the seat. Not touching her. But close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him. “I would rather you stay as you are. Exquisitely. Uniquely. And foolishly honest.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s your prerogative,koukla mou. But know that it wasn’t entirely meant to be one.”
She should be getting more and more annoyed. But instead, he had her scrambling hard to keep her face expressionless—
This was so, so bad.
Because his smile had changed. It was no longer jaded. No longer mocking. Instead, it was frighteningly genuine. And she hated it—
“You looked it up, did you not?”
—because it meant he had guessed right.
“And you like it.” His voice dropped. Softened. Became something almost tender, and somehow that was worse. “That I call you my doll.’”
Andie lifted her chin.
He raised a brow.
Moments passed.
The limo hummed beneath them. The city slid by beyond the tinted windows. And then—
He laughed.
And unfortunately, this also sounded terribly genuine.
“So this is how you are.” He was studying her now, gray eyes intent, like she was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. “When you don’t want to lie, but you don’t want to admit the truth either.”
Andie shrugged.
Less said, less mistakes. It was one of the earliest lessons she’d learned, growing up on the wrong side of—
“How about this, then?”
His arm moved, and that was it.
