She shrugged off thoughts of her grandmother and smiled. “Yet you’ve managed to stay single.”
“Much to her disappointment and frustration. Her attempts to see me settled with the perfect woman get more inventive, and devious, every year. But she raised me. I’m on to her moves.”
Intrigued, Jane propped her elbows on the table and leaned in. “How devious?”
Sitting forward to match her stance, he dipped his head closer. A conspiratorial grin quirked his lips. “Hmmm. Let’s see. Once, she signed me up for one of those buy-a-guy-for-a-day charity auctions, then picked up the tab so her friend’s granddaughter could make the winning bid. Another time, she conned me into escorting another granddaughter of a friend to a big movie premiere. The woman worked on the movie, Grandmother explained, and wanted to attend, but didn’t know anyone in town. I arrived at the hotel to pick up my date only to discover I’d be walking the red carpet with none other than Sophie Collins.”
Jane’s eyes went wide. “The Sophie Collins?”
“The one and only.”
“Well, at least your grandmother has good taste. Sophie’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
“I’m beginning to see why your grandmother has resorted to deviousness to achieve her goals. It’d take a very stubborn man to hold out against the temptation of Sophie Collins.”
“Oh, I was tempted.”
“Then what happened?”
“It turns out I was just a smokescreen to throw off the paparazzi. Sophie is hopelessly in love with her publicist.”
“Isn’t that always the way?” Jane shook her head.
Gabe laughed, his green eyes sparkling with approval. “But the worst was when Grandmother gave a strange woman the key to my condo while I was out of town on a junket.”
“Oh.” Her brows jumped together on a frown. “That is devious, and so wrong. What happened?”
He sipped from his glass. “The woman was an interior decorator with some, shall we say, interesting tastes.”
“She redecorated your condo? Without talking to you about it?”
He shrugged.
She cocked her head. “What do you mean by interesting tastes? What’d she do?”
“Besides painting every wall bordello red and replacing all my furniture with tasseled pillows, she installed a stripper pole in my bedroom.”
Jane’s jaw dropped until his twisting lips and the mischievous twinkle in his eyes tipped off she was being had. She snapped her jaw shut and flattened her lips in a narrow smirk. “You’re making that up.”
The rich rumble of his laughter slid over her skin like a caress. Merriment danced in his eyes.
“Yeah, I am, but sometimes it seems that bad. The woman is relentless.”
She snorted a helpless laugh. “I was beginning to feel sorry for you, but not anymore. I’m rooting for the little old lady. You deserve whatever she throws at you.”
His laughter eventually wound down to a chuckle as he glanced at his watch. “How much did your father tell you about this evening’s dinner meeting?”
She hadn’t realized how relaxed she’d become while trading slightly flirtatious jibes with the near stranger across from her, until returning nerves dropped on her shoulders like a leaden yolk. Crap. The devil was in the details, and the prick of horns jabbed her right in the center of her guilty conscience.
Shae hadn’t given her any particulars, other than her father was shoving her at another potential son-in-law who needed an interpreter. Now that Jane had met Gabe, and found him likable as well as charming, she didn’t want their deception harming his business.
“Uh, not much, actually.”
“No problem. We have a few minutes before Ms. Fougere is due to arrive.”
“Josette Fougere, the designer?”
He nodded. “I’m here to discuss charter flights for the Sexy Six Spring.”
Jane gulped another mouthful of wine. Last spring, the cunning new French designer had captured New York’s fashion week by storm, unleashing a wily marketing campaign featuring a group of six stunning models, clothed in Josette’s sexy evening line and draped over famous points of interest around Manhattan. The sultry video promptly went viral. The ladies were dubbed the Sexy Six, and Josette Fougere’s exclusive Park Avenue boutique suffered a near riot the day it had opened.
Gabe tapped his finger against his glass. “Her marketing team is taking the ladies’ show on the road next spring. They’ve booked a forty-city tour throughout the U.S. and Europe. I’m hoping to win the U. S. leg of the trip.”
She stared at him wide-eyed. First Sophie Collins and now the current rage of the fashion world. Gabe Sutton moved in some elite circles.
He leaned on his elbows. “Ms. Fougere’s English is extremely limited. My French isn’t much better. I understand most of the words, but not the subtle nuances. That’s where you come in. Without a good feel for the dialect, I’m at a disadvantage for reading her tells.”
“Tells?” Jane shook her head and struggled to keep up.