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persisted. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
    Maybe he was just trying to bug her now. He couldn’t tell anymore. And he’d never been very good at charming a woman into bed. He’d never had to be. They just came to him. When he was younger, it was apparently his looks. Now it was the money undoubtedly. He didn’t care either way, but neither seemed to matter much to Virginia Beckett.
    He tried another tactic. Honesty.
    “I find you extremely attractive.”
    “I bet!”
    That one did surprise him. Surely she knew how beautiful and sexy she was. Maybe, like all women apparently, she wanted to be complimented. Fine, he could get behind that if it served his purpose. “Really, you’re so gorgeous, I was a little stunned when I met you.”
    “So it’s not CEOs you routinely offer to sleep with when you first meet them, it’s just ‘gorgeous’ women.”
    “I said I was sorry about that.”
    “That makes it all better, then.”
    “Can you honestly say you don’t feel something between us that would be worth exploring, ah, in bed?”
    For a minute, she seemed at a loss for words.
    Unfortunately, she then found them. “You might just be the most egotistical man I’ve ever met. You’re trying to take over my company. All I’m feeling is hatred. Do you think I’m admiring your deep blue eyes or your hot body? Christ, why is it always about sex with men like you?”
    “And money,” he muttered, knowing he was hurting his case but starting to feel he might have lost it anyway already.
    “Isn’t one woman’s body much the same as the next to you, Mr. Winston? Why so obsessed with mine?”
    “Well, I haven’t gotten a good look at it, but what I can see I like.”
    “No really, if it has nothing to do with my company, why are you so intent on getting me into bed?”
    “Other than that I’m having wet dreams about you?”
    She colored.
    “The answer is I don’t know. I don’t usually pursue a woman so blatantly.”
    “They all come to you, I suppose, as soon as you crook your finger.”
    “No false modesty here, honey. Like you don’t have a pack of admirers waiting at the foot of your bed? And while we’re at it, why don’t you be honest about why you really don’t want to see me? You think I’m beneath you with your old money and lily white hands.”
    “Well, there’s that,” she said easily.
    At the look of fury on his face, the little witch laughed. Oddly, it relaxed him. He let out a deep breath. “I take it I’m not winning you over?”
    “I can’t separate sex from—from everything else, Mr. Winston.”
    “You won’t know unless you try.” He smiled at her, for the first time with some genuine warmth despite his defeat. It was kind of ridiculous.
    “No thanks.” She stood up and dropped the napkin that had been on her lap onto the table. “I knew it was a mistake to come here. If you want to sell me your stock, fine, call Minlow. But otherwise, no more one-on-ones for both our sakes, okay?”
    Aaron stood up and signaled for the check. “All right. Message received. Again, I didn’t mean to offend you by coming on to you. I apologize. Let me give you a lift home.”
    “No, no need for you to leave. You can have my fish.”
    “No thanks. I’m not hungry anymore.” He scribbled on the check the ever-present waiter brought him without asking why they were leaving before they’d eaten. The guy probably thought he was about to get lucky. Hilarious.
    He walked Virginia out. A couple of passers-by had stopped to chatter noisily on the corner. Something about someone’s job being too tedious to endure.
    “I think you’ll have a tough time getting a cab around here. There’s a lot of competition at this time of night. I can give you a lift. My driver’s right here.”
    “Okay. Thanks,” Virginia conceded as Aaron ushered her into the waiting gray limousine. An opaque sheet of smoked glass separated them from the driver and they pulled out into the Manhattan traffic.
    Aaron