Jet Set Confessions. Maureen Child
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his focus had to be on his budding company. So meeting a woman like this one could be problematic.
“So…” Fiona spoke again, and Luke told himself to listen up. “Now that we’re so comfy with each other, what brings you to San Francisco?”
“I don’t know if comfy is the right word,” Luke said wryly, shifting position a bit.
She reached for her wine, but Luke was faster. He handed her the glass. He wasn’t going to risk another wine bath.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Since my shirt is still wet from your last glass of wine, I’m going to say no.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s honest, anyway. I like honest. But I have to say, I think it’s time I moved to a chair.”
He reached for his scotch and took a sip. The aged whiskey sent a slow burn through his body that couldn’t even compare to the current blaze centered in his lap. “Yeah, maybe you should.” He knew everyone in the restaurant had to be watching them, and Luke didn’t give a flying damn. Fiona Jordan had broken up his afternoon and brightened a long, boring day, and he was going to enjoy it. In fact, he hadn’t felt this…light since the day before with his grandfather.
Something about her made him forget the things plaguing him and, for that, he was grateful. Just before she’d dropped into his lap, he’d been going over and over again that conversation with Pop. Wondering if he could have handled things better. Hating that the two of them were at such odds.
But this woman with the brilliant smile and the gorgeous legs had changed that—for however long the feeling lasted.
She hopped up, and Luke muffled a groan as she took a seat across the table from him.
He had to admit he was breathing easier, even when she took a sip of her wine, then ran the tip of her tongue across her top lip to catch a stray drop. His gaze locked on that movement and yet one more sharp jab of heat stabbed him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had attracted him so completely. And while warning bells were going off in the back of his mind, Luke ignored them all.
She took another sip of her wine, met his gaze across the table and asked, “So, what should we talk about?”
His eyebrows arched. “You want to have a conversation now?”
She shrugged. “You want to sit here in silence?”
She had a point. “Fine. Let’s talk.”
“Great.” She took a sip of wine. “You start.”
All he could really think about was what she was doing to him. Hard to come up with a conversational starter beyond Let’s go upstairs to my room. “No. You start.”
“Okay.” She shrugged, and the bodice of her blouse dipped again. “What’re you doing at the hotel?”
“At the moment, trying to keep my mind busy.”
She grinned. “Let me rephrase. Are you from San Francisco?”
“No,” he said. “I’m from Orange County. Newport Beach, specifically.”
She grinned. “We’re practically neighbors, then. I live in Long Beach. So, why are you here?”
“Business,” Luke told her. “I’m here for the tech conference.” Though he hadn’t been enjoying it until she had dropped onto his lap. With all the thoughts racing through his mind—his grandfather, Barrett’s, his own new company, he’d been silently stewing. She’d interrupted all of that.
“Ah.” She nodded and gave a quick glance around the restaurant. “A conference. That explains all of the badges, not to mention the fact that everyone I see has their nose glued to a phone or computer.”
He took a look, too, and had to admit that almost everyone in the dining area was reading a phone or scrolling on a tablet. Even at a table with six people sitting around it, all of them were busy with their own phones. He frowned a little, then shrugged it off. This conference was, as he’d said, for business.
“Guilty,” he said, turning his gaze back to her.
“So if you’re here for the conference, you’re in the tech business, right?”
“I am.” One of the reasons he came to these conferences was that here, he was surrounded by other forward-thinking people like him. People who understood that the future was in binary. “My company makes tech toys.”
“Tech toys?” She tipped her head to one side. “What kind?”
She actually seemed interested, and there was nothing he liked more than to talk about the latest in tech toys. If Pop hadn’t changed his mind, Luke would be even more eager to talk about them. He’d imagined steering Barrett’s into the future. Drawing on their already trusted name in toys to introduce kids to the what was to come. Still, his new company would do all of that. It would just take longer to take off. To get recognition. Luke took the conversational thread and ran with it. “All kinds. From tablets that are user-friendly for toddlers, to gaming boards, video games and miniature robots and drones.” He took a sip of his scotch. “We’ve got a full line of tech toys for every age.”
She laughed again and the sound of it was like champagne bubbles.
“I barely understand my computer now. I can’t imagine a toddler on one.”
“You’d be surprised. Our test groups do very well at color and spatial relations and problem solving on the screen.” He hadn’t been able to convince his grandfather of that, of course. Because Jamison was concerned about pumping too much information into growing minds. But Luke believed that a young, open mind was far more likely to absorb information. And how was that a bad thing?
“There have been dozens of studies to prove that in children as young as one, the brain is like a sponge, soaking up information far faster than it will in the future.”
She shook her head. “My best friend has a toddler whose main focus is eating the dog’s kibble.”
He laughed. “Maybe he needs a tablet.”
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Still, I’m amazed at the idea of babies on computers. But maybe I need a toddler to walk me through running my Word program.”
Luke smiled at her.
“So, I guess ‘tech toys’ means you don’t make bikes and dolls and things?”
His last encounter with his grandfather was still fresh in his mind, so his response was a little sharper than it should have been when he said, “No. The future isn’t made up of dolls and bikes and Frisbees. It’s in electronics.”
She held up both hands in mock surrender. “Whoa. Okay. You convinced me. I give up.”
Luke took a breath and blew it out again, reaching for calm. Wasn’t her fault that his grandfather was suddenly retreating into the past. “Yeah, sorry. Sore spot. My grandfather and I have been going around and around about this.”
“That has to be hard, disagreeing with family.” She sipped at her wine. “Why are you?”
No way was he getting into all of that right now. “Long story.”
She nodded as if she understood he simply didn’t want to talk about it. But then she asked, “All right. But I’m still not convinced that tablets for toddlers are a good idea. Even tiny sponges need a teddy bear.”
He smiled again, glad she’d dropped it. Back on safe ground, ground he knew like the back of his hand, he said, “There are plenty of companies that sell stuffed animals or dolls or whatever else you think a kid should have. But the future for kids today will be in technology, so shouldn’t they get a jump as young as possible?”
She still looked unconvinced. “But toddlers?”
“Sure.