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movement.
    “Yes, I remember. You offered to sleep with me while I made up my mind about you taking over my company.”
     
    Aaron felt a swift twinge of irritation. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. He should have suspected as much from her stonewalling tactic in ignoring his phone calls. He’d tried to put her out of his mind, but had been unsuccessful and had finally resorted to having Rye intercede. He felt childish about the whole thing anyway, like telling the teacher on her. And she wasn’t exactly extending an olive branch here.
    “I was way off base with that.”
    “Yes, you were,” Virginia pointed out expressionlessly, ignoring the tuxedo-clad waiter who arrived to take their order and then silently disappeared at a curt nod from him. “So when you say you’re interested in me now, I’m wondering how this approach is any different. Interested in me how, exactly?”
    Aaron smiled. Why did this cool, self-possessed woman drive him to such bluntness? “How are men usually interested in you, Virginia?”
    “I see. So that’s why you bought a multi-million-dollar stake in my company—in order to date me.”
    What a bitch, he mused, even as he admired her graceful posture and the thrust of her breasts against her white silk shirt. Her lashes were incongruously dark against her pale cheeks as she looked demurely down at a menu. Aaron leaned back into the cushy yellow velvet of his chair, willing himself to relax. He wanted her. He could put up with a little sarcasm. “Naturally, my plans for your company were a little different before I met you,” he lied smoothly.
    “Really? Well, what are your plans for my company, now?”
    “Frankly, I haven’t given your company a second thought since I laid eyes on you,” Aaron said. That much was true. He wanted to get her into bed first. Then he’d deal with her company once he got it out of his system.
    He coolly poured her another glass of wine and waited for her response. What he had hoped would be a seduction was rapidly turning into an interrogation instead. He wondered if the irreproachable Miss Beckett was as frosty in bed as she was at the dinner table.
    Virginia took a sip of wine. The waiter approached again, and he was on the verge of waving him away again, but decided instead that they should order. This whole process needed to slow down before one of them blew their top again.
    Virginia ordered fish, no appetizer, and he opted for the beef.
    When the waiter left, he found himself fiddling with his silverware, uncharacteristically unsure as to how to proceed. He tried smiling at her as she took a bite out of one of the soft, warm rolls in the basket at the center of the white-linen-covered table.
    “You must have a very inflated opinion of your charms if you believe that I would in any way risk my company in order to enjoy them,” she offered conversationally.
    He stared at her lovely face as she chewed her roll.
    “I’m not asking you to risk your company. Let’s put that aside for now. This isn’t some elaborate plan to trick you out of control or make you fall in love with me and hand over your stock.”
    “As if,” she snorted.
    Something about that rubbed him the wrong way. “I realize I didn’t make the social register, but I don’t see what you could object to in terms of dating me.”
    “Other than the fact that you’re trying to take over my company?”
    “ Your company. Your company. Why do you keep harping on that? Possessions are made to be bought and sold. They’re not people.”
    “Sold when the seller wants to sell them.”
    “Your aunt wanted to sell me her stock. Somebody else will too. I guarantee it. Maybe even you at some point.”
    “Do you plan to wear me down by continually asking me out?”
    “Are you gay?”The thought had just occurred to him.
    “Oh please! Do you honestly believe that’s the only type of woman who could bear to turn you down?”
    “I know you’re not married,” he