That gave me a perfect opening for the so-easy-anyone-could-have-gotten-it story I’d failed to get earlier in the week. “So whatever did happen with your last girlfriend?”
His smile disappeared for half a second, and I realized I’d taken him totally off guard. But he recovered fast. “I guess I can’t ask you to turn your work off, huh?”
Busted. Any reporter worth her salt would have pressed the point and gotten something to print in the morning paper. I, however, took in his disappointed slump and his guileless blue eyes, knowing I could take advantage of his openness, and I caved instantly. “What? No, sorry. I was asking off the record. I’m sorry. Consider it a residual echo. I’ll shut up, now.”
He sighed. “First of all, she wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“No? But you were linked with her for the past month.” I’d done my research. In every article, she’d been listed as “Micah Sinclair’s girlfriend, Isabelle Montreuil.”
“Because tabloids are so accurate.” He rolled his eyes with a laugh. Not for the first time, I wondered what it must be like to be on that side of the camera, always misinterpreted with no way to put a shattered reputation back together or fight the stories manufactured for someone else’s profit.
“So what then? Didn’t you break it off with her?”
“Don’t you read the gossip pages?” He chuckled at that, and I exhaled, relieved I hadn’t offended him.
I had read them. Of course I had. It was like salt in the wound to see other papers easily getting the information I could have had if Micah hadn’t flummoxed me. “You said you’d had fun together, but it was never serious.” No wonder he had a reputation as a mimbo.
“To be honest, it would be more accurate to sayshehad her fun and was ready to move on. That’s what usually happens. I meet a girl, she hangs around for a while, and then she meets someone else, usually someone more famous, and climbs up.” This time his laugh rang a little false. The corner of his mouth twitched, and I thought I saw past the perpetually charming facade for a moment. “It’s almost like a business transaction.”
“That sounds so sad.” I faced him, looking into his eyes for any signs he was lying. “Why do you always say it’s your fault? You know you’ve got a bit of a reputation.”
“I never said it was my fault. I said it was a mutual breakup, but for some reason, that always seems to read as an admission of guilt.” He lifted his shoulders in a slight whatcha-gonna-do shrug. “But it can’t hurt my image much, right? I’ve already been cast as the partying bad boy.”
“Well, you do only seem to date party girls.”
“No. I’ve dated nice girls.”
“Really? I have a hard time believing I wouldn’t have read about them in the gossip pages.”
“Nice girls don’t like the paparazzi.” He winked.
“Like that would stop the paps.” I should know.
“I know.” He looked out the window. “That’s why those relationships don’t last.”
“So what? You just gave up?”
His shoulders sagged, and he faced me with the most serious look I’d seen on him. “I haven’t given up. Maybe I’ve taken the path of least resistance.” He leaned toward me. “Maybe I haven’t found the right girl.”
Was he smoldering? I groaned. “Does that line work on anyone?”
His face lit up in a playful smile. “You’ll have to let me know.”
“You sure are a smooth operator.”
“Nah. Just direct.”
I laughed. “Hardly. Interviewing you is like trying to catch a greased pig.” He snorted at that, and I considered him, sitting there with his cocky grin. “So why are you telling me all this?”
“I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t. I can see the exposé tomorrow. However, you did say my three favorite words:off the record.”
“I honestly don’t know what to make of you.”
He scooted closer and brushed against me. He’d never strapped on his seat belt. “Copy that. I’ve been trying to figure you out all night.”
“Me?”
Ignoring my mostly rhetorical question, he reached up and pinched a strand of my hair, sliding his fingers down before letting the lock drop onto my shoulder where it sprang back into shape. “You really do have beautiful hair.”
