Читать книгу The Billionaire Bid - Leigh Michaels, Leigh Michaels - Страница 8

DEZ stared at her for so long that Gina thought perhaps he’d gone into a catatonic state. But even when he finally blinked and shook his head as if he was trying to clear it, he didn’t say anything to her. Instead, he pulled his cell phone off his belt and without looking at it punched two keys. “Sarah, cancel my lunch meeting.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on. Let’s find a place where we can sit down and talk sense for a change.”

Gina shook her head. “No, really,” she said. She tried very hard not to let irony seep into her voice, and she almost succeeded. “You mustn’t put yourself out for my sake. It’s quite useless to try to convince me.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. If you were the only one who’d be affected by this idiotic idea, I’d stand by and watch while you walked out in front of the freight train.”

Well, that was brutally frank, Gina thought. “Thank you.”

He frowned. “For what?”

“Confirming my suspicions that you’re not nearly as unconcerned about your public image as you pretend to be.”

“You think this is about my image?” He made a sound that could charitably have been called a snort. “The tearoom on the sixth floor is probably the quietest place in the building at this hour.”

“And I seem to recall they have hazelnut coffee,” Gina murmured.

“Hey, you can’t blame me for wanting to get something pleasant out of this. Though if you’d rather, we could stop on the fifth floor instead.”

“What’s there?” Gina asked warily.

“Hot tubs. They usually keep at least one full of water as a demonstration model.”

“On second thought, coffee sounds like a great idea.” She paused beside the Art Deco elevator and with the tip of her index finger traced the pattern overlaid on the cool gray metal. “Elevators. Already installed. And such nice ones, too.”

“They’re the originals,” Dez countered.

“I know. They’ll be like an exhibit themselves.”

“You can look at them and romanticize their history if you want, but all I see is old machinery that needs an expensive overhaul—if it isn’t obsolete altogether.” He punched at the sixth-floor button with his fist.