Page 68 of Lead Me On
She’d been hoping he’d propose a night at home. But she knew she’d been hoping in vain. Could she do this? Go out with him on a real, meaningful date? Because there was no doubt that was what he meant. “Okay,” she breathed.
“Okay?” He raised his head and looked straight at her. “All right, then. We’ll go someplace nice. Maybe Miso or Antony’s?”
Jane looked down at the floor and clasped her shaking hands together. Was she really going to let Chase take her out among businessmen and people who knew her? Could she make that leap?
Maybe. Maybe she could.
She took a deep breath and clenched her hands into fists. “Either would be fine.”
“Really?” That one word was a laugh of disbelief. “Well, all right, then. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Seven,” she agreed, her pulse galloping. She was going to do this.
As if the world had been waiting for just this arrangement, the door to the meeting room opened, and Jessie emerged with his attorney. His face was actually serious instead of apathetic. Maybe he really was growing up.
Peter Chase stood and inclined his head toward the lawyer. “All right, Billy,” he said to Chase. “I should be just a minute.”
Billy? Jane glanced toward him. “Billy?” she said, her smile stretching to a grin. “That’s your name?” She was starting to laugh when she registered the way his mouth tightened, his eyes going dark. “What?” she asked, thinking he must really hate the name.
But he didn’t answer her, and the name formed more fully in her mind.
Billy. Bill. William. That was what theWon his card stood for.
Chase watched her with a gravity that scared her.
“Billy,” she repeated. “Billy Chase.” And it finally hit her like a flat, brutal hand. Billy Chase.
“Oh, my God,” Jane murmured.
“Jane,” he said, his hand reaching out as if he’d touch her.
She jerked her arm out of his reach. “Oh, my God.”
“It’s no big deal.”
No bigdeal?Jane rushed for the door.
“Hey,” she heard her brother say. “Where’s she going?” But she knew the footsteps following were Chase’s.
She got to the elevator, but his hand closed over her elbow when she stopped to hit the button. “I can’t…” she gasped.
“Jane, don’t run off.”
“You knew me.” She heard her own breath rushing too fast past her lips.
“Let’s talk somewhere private.”
“No.” She yanked her arm from his grip.
“Jane, come on.”
“Youknewme. Oh, my God.” Billy Chase. A vague image emerged from deep in her memory banks of a cute boy with a Coke can in his hand. Every party she’d ever seen him at, he’d been drinking a Coke. During at least one of those parties, she’d sat on his lap and sucked at his tanned neck, thrilled with the way his dick got harder with each passing second.
Jane’s eyes widened with a sudden thought. “That’s why you asked me out.”
“What?”
“You knew who I was. That’s why you asked me out—”
