Patrick could tell that his laconic answers were driving Tove Nilsen just a little nuts. But he couldn’t help himself. He was having problems processing language.
The woman was gorgeous.
Her mother had been the 1970’s ideal: tall and lean with a long fall of straight blond hair. But Tove…her body was tall and lush, with absolutely gorgeous, full breasts perfectly showcased by a silky, v-neck blouse. Her rounded hips were hugged by wide-legged linen pants—comfortable for the early fall heatwave, but wrinkling like a bitch. Her pale hair waved to about shoulder-length, captured at the nape with a clip, a few strands slipping free to frame her face.
She had to know how tempting her body was wrapped in that silken top. And his fastidious soul wanted to strip the wrinkled linen off her as well. But she merely rested her head against the headrest as he pressed the accelerator and passed a sign for Frostburg.
Frost. Yeah, well, Tove was a bit frosty, but that was appealing in its own way as well. He had the notion that the frost was a thin veneer and that heat might lie just underneath.
“So, you’re a charitable consultant. I guess you should know some things about me as well.”
“I already know a great deal about you,” he responded as the car purred toward rounded green hills.
He felt rather than saw the cool blue gaze boring into the side of his face.
“You do.” It was not quite a statement, not quite a question.
“Yeah. Your career, at least. Lots of information about that online. And your daughter’s. Her fiancée’s.”
“You did your homework.”
“Of course. You don’t get half-assed service for the amount of money you’ve paid.”
“Good to know. Oddly enough, there’s no information about you online at all.”
He didn’t suppress his grin. “Nope. Nor should there be. Discretion is—was—key to my success.”
“And your business now?”
“Builds mostly word-of-mouth.”
“Risky.”
Dear lord, but he liked that calculating tone in her voice. He already knew she was smart: no woman started from nothing the way she had and then built her own business in as cutthroat a city as Washington without intelligence and drive. But seeing it in action was a serious turn-on.
He didn’t have to review the terms of the contract they’d verbally agreed to. He only ever had one and it was both simple and never put in writing. It included clean STI tests for both parties and left all possibilities on the table in terms of physical intimacy or lack thereof. Client’s choice, but he had right of refusal. He’d rarely had to pull the trigger on that clause, but it helped to keep the more entitled clients in check.
At first, it had surprised him how little sex the job actually included. But then he started paying attention, really paying attention to his clients. For the most part, they weren’t sex-starved.
They were lonely.
That was when he started making the big money. Because a man who paid attention to a woman? Who listened to her with his whole being? Who touched her in a way that communicated to her and everyone else that she was precious?
Turned out, that was one hell of a commodity.
Tove sat in the passenger’s seat of her own car and let the acceleration press her into the smooth leather as they wound towards their destination. She couldn’t figure Patrick out. Maybe she should have expected the calm certainty, the way he piloted her car, the undercurrent of humor to his voice and expression that said he found her attempts to control everything a little ridiculous.
She hadn’t expected that the man would research her and Emily and Hayley. And that threw her off balance.
“Did you research Anthony as well?”
He leaned a little into a turn. “Little bit. Didn’t really need to.”
She rolled her eyes. “Because he’s constantly in the public eye.”
“That and I’ve met him. Not a fan, I have to say.”
A chill shot through Tove’s gut and she sat up. “You met him? He’s going to know who you are?”
That hooded, dark brown gaze shot sideways at her again. “No. I met him briefly, years ago. I was working, yes. But, as you may have noticed, I didn’t advertise what I did to everyone. Kind of antithetical to the livelihood.”
“Ah. Yes. Sorry.” She leaned back into the upholstery but couldn’t quite relax as they passed a sign that told drivers they were thirty miles from the town of Accident. It felt like a warning. Or a cliché. Maybe both.
“No need to be sorry. This is new for you.”
“Hiring someone to be my date to my only child’s wedding so I don’t have to face my steaming pile of crap ex-husband alone? Yeah. A novelty.” She hated how bitter her voice sounded. But it was the truth.
“Well, stick with me, honey. I’m the expert in that.”
“Novelty or crap exes?”
He barked a short laugh. “Both, I guess.”
Tove laughed a little helplessly. “I guess you would be. And horrible exes must have been a huge driver of business for you.”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders sliding easily against the crisp cotton of his obviously bespoke shirt. “Sometimes. People have come to me for a variety of reasons over the years.”
“People. Not just women?”
Those brown eyes did that quick shift to the right, took her measure in milliseconds, then returned to the road. “Mostly women.”
“Ah.”
“You’re very perceptive, you know that?”
Tove snorted, an inelegant sound in her own ears. “I’ve had to be. You made your business with…” She waved a hand at his body. “I made it with perception. Literally.”
“Political image consultant. Yeah.” This time, he didn’t look at her and she wondered if she’d insulted him.
While she considered how to walk back her potential insult, he said, “So, tell me a little about Emily. The stuff that doesn’t go into a Times profile.”
Tove nearly melted. “My sweet girl,” she said.
“That good, huh?” His lips quirked into that crooked smile again and Tove’s heart lurched.
“I swear, she came into the world laughing. Or maybe it was just the drugs I was on after a twenty-four-hour labor.”
Patrick laughed outright at that. “The lady has a sense of humor.”
Ice Princess. That had been Anthony’s description of her when they were married and the descriptors only got less flattering during and after the divorce. He sure didn’t think she was funny. “Occasionally,” she said, realizing her tart tone might undercut her message. A bit.
But he just smiled that lazy, crooked smile again. “How did she get into videography? Seems like a departure, given both her parents’ careers.”
Tove unclipped her hair and scrubbed her fingers across her scalp, then finger-combed it back from her forehead. “She would tell you she’s a cinematographer. She’s always been artistic. She’s an excellent painter. But movies captured her attention, and it was all over.”
“Probably more practical than painting, also.”
“Very true. She’s also a people person, very outgoing and charming and tends to get the best out of her clients, be they wedding parties or corporate clients or—”
“Or social media musicians/influencers,” Patrick finished.
“Well, Hayley was a special case. Though she really shines in the videos that Emily’s taken of her. The ones she recorded on her own lack a certain…sparkle?”
Patrick shrugged again and the gesture temporarily derailed Tove’s train of thought. “That’s what love does, though.”
She blinked. “Love?”
“It makes a person sparkle. That’s why the videos Emily takes of Hayley are so much better. Love.”
Tove sat up a little straighter in her seat. “Do you know a lot about love?”
Patrick’s eyes slid sideways. “Yes and no. But I know it when I see it.”