To know more about the real Ava, not Ava Sims, journalist.
But it wasn’t her brain that wanted that.
And no way was she going to put her heart out there when the guy couldn’t even bother to ask.
Instead of letting on to her disappointment, she gave him a saucy wink. “It was as short as you’re hoping it was.”
“I knew it. You were my high school fantasy.”
But not your adult fantasy?
Ava was saved from having to follow that thought by the arrival of their entrées.
“A piece of your duck for a bite of my steak?” he said after gesturing for the server to bring them another round of wine.
She didn’t stop him.
Superficial conversation or not, having a long, lingering meal with a guy who was straight-up decent was too nice to pass up.
They exchanged bites of their entrées, and Ava didn’t protest when he snagged another bite of her truffled mashed potatoes as though it were his right. He didn’t even blink when she helped herself to a Brussels sprout on his plate that tasted way better than any cabbage had a right to taste.
They ate in companionable silence for a few moments until Ava felt his gaze on her. She looked up at him. “What?”
“Do you do this often?” he asked.
“Eat dinner?”
He smiled his slow, dangerous smile. “Don’t be a smart ass. I mean eat dinner with a man. Go on dates.”
Ava took a tiny sip of wine, trying to ignore the thrill that went through her. So maybe he did care about getting to know her after all. He hardly sounded jealous, but he did sound…interested.
“Not much recently,” she said. “I used to try a little harder to date. It’s what single twenty-something women in New York are supposed to do, but…”
“But?”
She gave him a toothy smile. “Men are shits.”
He laid a hand over his chest. “You wound me.”
“I didn’t say you were a shit.”
“But you sometimes think so. Admit it.”
“I may or may not be revising my opinion,” she said after taking a sip of wine.
“I knew it. You did keep that ticket as a memento of your feelings for me. How did your boyfriend feel about that?”
This time Ava’s smile was wide and genuine. “I give you a free pass to dig into my entire personal life, and you seem to be focusing only on my romantic endeavors, Officer Moretti. Why is that?”
She awaited the flirtatious banter that rolled off him so easily, but to her surprise, his expression went serious.
“I can venture into other topics if you want, but somehow I don’t think you’re going to like them.”
Ava’s smile slipped. “Meaning?”
He leaned forward, his expression more intense than before. “That first day in Captain Brinker’s office…I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I wanted no part in this damn news special. But my cop instincts were telling me that you didn’t want any part in it either. Explain that.”
The bite of duck Ava had just put in her mouth suddenly seemed to dry and swell up on her, and she forced herself to chew slowly and methodically as she reached for her water.
Finally the piece of meat went down, and she was able to respond.
Only to realize she had nothing to say.
Journalists were good at evasive bullshitting. Ava in particular was great at it; it was the only way to explain away why you were somewhere you shouldn’t be when researching a story, and the occasional white lie here and there wasn’t unheard of to get interview subjects to open up and spill their guts.
But she and Luc seemed past that somehow. And so she didn’t quite lie.
She did, however, evade.
“Maybe your cop instincts were wrong,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze with a steady, bland look of her own.
“They haven’t been yet.”
She leaned forward. “Oh, come on. You’re telling me you’ve never made a mistake.”