Page 15 of Conning the Billionaire
Or he’d thought he hadn’t until she called him out.
Kylie looked straight into Micah’s eyes. “But you’re not okay. Every time I talk about my parents being gone, you wince. There’s a lot happening behind your eyes. What happened to you?”
Micah had forgotten that he was dealing with a fellow professional, not merely an asset to be cultivated.
Micah didn’t look away from her sweet face or vulnerable brown eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Something happened to you.” Kylie reached across the marble table, scooting aside the dish of arancini and the cheese platter, and she took his hand. The table was too large to make this a delicate move, and she was practically lying on the tabletop to reach his hand, her generous breasts almost spilling out of her low-cut formal gown.
Micah reluctantly looked back at her eyes.
Kylie asked, “Did something happen to your parents?”
His arm twitched as he repressed the urge to yank his hand away and sit back in the booth. He was supposed to be the professional here, and she was just a small-time casino con artist.
And yet, in less than half an hour, she’d gotten under his skin. Despite his best efforts and never answering her questions, she knew more about him than anyone else still alive in the world.
If he allowed her to think she was correct, that was. The rule was to never tell an asset a true thing, or anything at all, preferably. Lies had to be supported with manufactured evidence if they were suspected of being false.
Micah smiled as he flipped his hand over to hold her cool fingers, leaned in, and gazed into her eyes as if he was seducing her. “For a woman like you, Delilah, I could pretend.”
She batted her eyes at him. “Whatever do you mean?”
It was so funny when she tried to play him, like a kitten attacking his foot and thinking she was going to tear his leg off.
And yet, as she’d just shown him, kittens have razor blades on their toes.
He said, “I’m so glad you broke up with your ex-boyfriend. He didn’t deserve you.”
She ducked her head and peeked at him from around the curling tendrils of her sable hair. “Oh, I don’t know.”
This “Delilah Corleone” was just the cutest, even if he thought so for an entirely different reason than she intended. “You deserve someone who cares for you and will give you what you need, what you want. Someone who will spend time and money on you like the treasure you are.”
Her dark eyes narrowed just a little, evaluating him, and Micah thought maybe he’d blown it by being a little too on the nose.
But she blinked again, batting her lush eyelashes at him with a shy smile. “Do you really think so?”
Micah poured all his sincerity into his eyes because he could fake that, and he squeezed her small hand that he held across the table. “You seem like the sweetest woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t believe a man would be so stupid as to cheat on you and stand you up.” Literally, he didn’t believe her story in the slightest. “If you were mine, I’d drape you in gems and couture clothes, take you to Paris and Milan on my private jet, and sleep all night with you in my penthouse.”
Ah, a hint of truth. He’d slipped.
She batted her kohl-lined eyes at him again. “Wow. You’d do that for me?”
“I like to spoil my women. It makes us both happy,” he said.
Her expression was adorable, like he was too good to be true.
Which he was.
Especially considering what he’d had planned for her, though he’d decided to up the ante a little.
His handlers had always said Micah’s ability to improvise in his single-minded pursuit of a goal was one of his strengths.
Another waiter arrived with their meals, and they released their hands so she could place the two lasagnas on the table. “Enjoy.”
Oh, the scents of basil and garlic emanating from the lasagna smelled just like Micah’s mother used to make. He inhaled deeply, trying to breathe and remember good moments before his energy diverted to keeping the other memories at bay.
The moment passed, the other images assailed him, and they dissolved into the nothingness of loneliness as he picked up his fork and ate the lasagna.
