“Well, what are they doing?”

“Hmm?”

“If they’re not talking, what are they doing? Are they kissing me? Caressing me?”

“They’re kissing each other—in the back while you drive. They’re also one-clicking on their phones, spending your money.”

His lips curl a little higher and his eyebrows lift too. “I no longer have drivers to keep my hands free for the girls?”

“Nope, they quit. It had to do with the scandal of an orgy in the back of the car, and their families were devastated.”

“Rachel,” he chides. “Where do you get these ideas about me?”

“The internet.” I laugh a little. “Everywhere.”

His eyes drop to my lips for a second. My breath catches a little and my laugh drifts into silence. I feel his gaze squeeze my stomach.

He seems to check himself and lead his eyes firmly back up. “What about you? What are you doing when you’re forty?” He shifts to look at me more intently. His shoulder grazes my shoulder and I can barely stand the buzzing down my arm.

“I guess . . . I’ll be working. Writing, hopefully,” I say.

“Nothing changed?” he asks me.

I actually consider what I would like to change. But how impossible it would be. Him? He can’t even commit to a wine, how can I expect him to ever want me for long?

My voice is soft as a breath. “What I want isn’t known for . . . committing.”

“Known by who?”

“I don’t know.” I laugh again, then I glance out the window and inhale slowly, feeling his gaze on my back as the sadness of my circumstance overwhelms me. “Why do you want to hire me? You’re so smart. You always think out your actions. For the salary you’re offering you could get three journalists with much more experience and prestige.”

“None of which would be you.”

I sigh. “You’re dangling an apple before me. It’s hard not to take a bite.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

“With what? You don’t need a bite; you can chow down anything with one swallow. You can take anything you want.”

“No. I work for what I most want. I win it, or I don’t feel like it’s mine at all.”

“You didn’t feel like your money was yours until you earned it on your own?”

“That’s right.”

“You like the chase.”

“Relish it.”

“You like a challenge.”

“I live for them.” He looks at me with more emotion than I’ve ever seen in a guy’s eyes. I’m melting, warm.

“You’re enjoying me saying no then? That is your challenge with me now? You get me to say yes, and you win.”

“No, Rachel, we need to get you some glasses. Because you’re not reading me right.” He looks at me, smiles to himself, drags a hand over his head. “I can never seem to win with you.”

“Well . . . I lose,” I whisper.

“What did you lose?”

I lost my mind and my heart, my muse, and, I think, my soul to you.

It’s the combination of the wine and him. This man who weakens me like this. “I lose. I’m falling asleep now.”

I wasn’t supposed to yet. But I’m warm and relaxed, over-sensitized to him; his warm breath across my forehead, his hard, thick thigh close to mine . . . the square of his shoulder nearly touching mine.

“I used to play this with Gina . . . first one to fall asleep loses. I bet you never lose . . .” I mumble.

There’s a thoughtful silence. Then, in my ear, sending shivers down my spine, is his voice: “I don’t like to.”

I smile a little and am dozing when he takes my arm and helps me up slowly. “Come here. There’s a bed here with your name on it.”

“Oh. You can afford a bed.”

“Yeah. Do you want me to teach you how to use it?” he mocks me.

“I use a bed for sleep . . . but I don’t know what you use it for.”

“You know. A little fun here and there.”

He walks me to the bed and then eases me down there. I sleepily watch him go to the bathroom and search for a toothbrush.

He’s still in his shirt, washing his face with big hands, scrubbing his square jaw, then ramming the toothbrush into his mouth and washing fast and hard. He flicks the lights off and comes out, and I close my eyes and exhale before I open them again.

He spreads out on top of the bed, over the comforter while I’m under it. Slowly, he sets his phone aside and curls an arm behind his head as he studies me with an unreadable expression. I smile shyly.