Page 16 of Dial F for Finance

“Answer the question, Jenna.”

She sighs. “I think men like you are accustomed to wanting something and getting it,” she says, turning another page more aggressively than necessary.

“Men like me.”

“Don’t sound wounded. You know what you are.”

“I know what people think I am.”

That makes her look at me.

Good.

Then I ruin the moment by wanting too much from it.

Her gaze drops first. And I know better than to assume it’s from weakness—Jenna doesn’t do weakness. What she does is decide, in the space of a breath, that I don’t get to see whatever just moved across her face. It is, frankly, one of the more maddening things about being in love with a woman who treats her own interiority like a classified document.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said last night,” she says suddenly, the subject change so swift and unexpected that my brain doesn’t process it properly.

“Come again?”

“Don’t make me spell it out, Dominic.” She keeps her attention on the papers. “You know exactly what I’m referring to.”

“I don’t know, Pemberton.” I lean back slightly, watching the heat climb up her neck and loving every second of it. “A lot of things were said last night. If you’re going to apologize, you’re going to need to be⁠—”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I said something regrettable. I’m acknowledging it for the record so we can both move on.”

I stare at her. “OK. Just so we’re clear—you don’t regret kissing me? Or you just regret saying that part out loud?”

Her mouth presses into a thin line. “I regret the entire evening,” she says. “As you pointed out, I’d had too much champagne. I was embarrassed. My judgment wasn’t where I’d want it to be. So, yes. You were right to reject my advances.”

It should feel good, hearing her say that. It doesn’t. It feels like watching someone take one of the greatest moments of my adult life and try to explain it away in contract terms.

“I wasn’t rejecting you,” I say.

Her eyes flick up. “I’m not interested in relitigating the point, Dominic. The moment has passed. You made the right decision.”

There it is again. The thing under the anger. The part she hides so well most people would miss it. I don’t. I’ve been studying Jenna Pemberton too long to miss the tiny crack beneath the polish.

I lean across the table. “I didn’t stop because I didn’t want you, Jenna. I stopped because I did.”

She looks away, but not before I see the hit land.

“If I’d taken you upstairs, you would have woken up this morning with champagne still in your bloodstream and enough room to convince yourself I’d used one reckless moment to get what I wanted.”

Her jaw flexes.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you.”

That gets her eyes back on me, cool and dangerous. “You know a version of me.”

“Yes,” I say. “But I’d kill to see the version you don’t share.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, like she’s about to admit something only to shred it on the way out. “If you’re angling for a confession, it’s not happening at thirty thousand feet.”

I smile, slow. “No need for a confession. I already know what you wanted on that terrace. Now I’m waiting to see what you want with a clear mind.”