An appreciative grin flashes across his seductive mouth and I have the dumb urge to return that smile, even though I’m beyond irritated. Is the altitude affecting me?

“Do you speak to every woman with this much familiarity?”

There’s a twitch somewhere in the neighborhood of his right dimple, but he maintains his smirk. “Sometimes. But I’m not all that interested in their answers,” he says, seeming to catch himself off guard. “The way I am with yours.”

“Why me?” No answer. His mischievous grin dulls ever so slightly and his blue eyes grab onto mine tightly, holding—and I see something vulnerable there. I get a fleeting glimpse behind his tomcat façade and it…affects me. “You behave like this as a distraction, don’t you?”

He chuckles. “A distraction from what?”

I shrug a shoulder. “The real you. Whoever that is.”

Amusement fades from his expression. “The real anyone is usually a disappointment.”

“What are you more afraid of? Being disappointed? Or doing the disappointing?”

Tobias breaks our stare quickly, shoveling fingers through his thick head of chestnut hair. “Who says it can’t be both?”

The thrum in my veins grows thicker. I’m tethered to him by a rope of intimacy that was objective before, but it tightened, became personal, with a brief glimpse at the man underneath. I’m becoming magnetized against my will.

This isn’t real. Seriously. I have to be imagining this.

My brain has conjured this entire bizarre scenario.

A third man cannot be making my pulse race. Fast. Faster. In a way that confuses me, because it’s reminiscent of fight or flight, except the rapid-fire pounding in my veins is a lot thicker. And lower. My erogenous zones are well acquainted with this man—his chiseled face and deep, promissory voice—and they’ve fired up at his nearness, forcing me to press my knees together in an attempt to quell a spreading ache.

He notices.

His chest rises and falls with a curse.

But I don’t expect him to look pained over my embarrassing, telltale move.

Briefly, he closes his eyes. When they open, his gaze travels up the side of my neck, over the crown of my head, as if he’s taking my measurements. “The uptight one asked you a question, Elise.” His tone once again cajoling. “What business do you have on Roosevelt Island?”

Reality comes back to me in degrees.

Obviously I can’t tell him—them—the truth.

Not with Gabe sitting directly behind Tobias. A quick peek at his reflection in the window tells me the construction worker is listening closely, too. I’m not a good liar. I’m much more likely to tell an uncomfortable truth and damn the consequences, but in this case, I’m better off telling an itty bitty white lie. The last thing I need is Gabe tipping off his boss that someone from the Gotham Times has connected him to the deputy mayor.

The sandwich girl, but hey. Semantics.

And maybe there is a tiny part of me that is embarrassed to tell them I sling ham on whole wheat all day. Maybe there is even a little annoying part of me that wants to impress them, especially since I haven’t impressed anyone lately. Especially myself.