A Miami Affair

After a few more minutes admiring the vehicle, Becca finally looked at Josh. He was standing on the sidewalk with his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face.

“Sorry,” she said. “I guess you can say I have a bit of a car fetish.”

“There’s no need to apologize.” He walked over and opened the door for her. “If I was the type of man to get jealous, I’d have stopped you from admiring my car minutes ago. Instead, you just made me more curious about how you developed your love of cars.”

Becca smiled as she got into the car, and Josh followed. Neither of them spoke for the first couple minutes of the drive.

“So are you going to make me beg?”

Becca turned to Josh. “Make you beg for what?”

“Are you going to tell me how you know so much about cars, or are you going to make me beg for the details?”

Becca’s laughter echoed throughout the car. “Something tells me that a man like you has never had to beg for anything a day in his life.”

As the car stopped at a light, Josh met her eyes. “Something tells me that you’re the type of woman who would make me beg.” His look was intense and one that she hadn’t yet seen. “And something tells me that I wouldn’t mind begging.”

Is he flirting with me? There’s no way Joshua DeLong is flirting with me. Yet the minute his lips curled into a side smile, she disregarded her previous thought. For whatever reason, he was flirting with her, and for an even more insane reason, she was liking it.

* * *

“Is French okay with you?” Josh asked as they were taken to one of the best seats in the upscale restaurant. Even in the daytime, the dim lighting in the restaurant provided an intimate ambiance.

“French is fine, but I wasn’t aware that this was going to be such an extravagant lunch.”

Josh glanced around. “This restaurant has the best French food in Miami. The head chef just won another prestigious award.”

“I’ve heard great things about this place,” Becca said as she opened her menu.

“I meant to tell you,” Josh said, opening his menu, as well. “You look really nice today.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. He noticed that her black-rimmed glasses seemed smaller than the ones he’d seen her wear in her online picture. He actually liked these glasses a lot. They fit her.

He couldn’t quite place what was different about her today, but she looked less restricted than he’d seen her look before. He’d meant to comment on it when they were leaving her office, but her enthusiasm over his car had caused him to forget.

If he hadn’t needed to discuss the paperwork, he would have been content with watching her admire his Bugatti all day. The excitement he’d seen on her face was enough to keep him entertained for hours. He still wanted to see just how deep her knowledge of cars went, but she’d grown quiet in the car after he’d asked her, so he would wait to bring it up again.

After they placed their order, he took out the paperwork. “Here’s the agreement with your suggestions incorporated in the document.”

Becca accepted the packet of information and began scrolling through the pages. “Everything looks good.” She took out the single sheet of paper. “What’s this?”

Josh took out the same sheet from the paperwork sitting in front of him. “Since you and I weren’t seeing eye to eye on the gala being widely publicized, I composed a list of celebrities that are not only heavily involved in charity work, but that truly believe in the mission of the organizations they support.”

Josh waited patiently as Becca read through the details. She lifted her head from the sheet when she was finished. “This is pretty impressive.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Josh hadn’t known how much he wanted her approval until he’d received it. “I was also thinking that—with your approval—we could reach out to a couple friends I have in the media to get some good publicity for The Aunt Penny Foundation before the gala. When I researched the foundation, it looked like you haven’t had any media coverage in at least a year. It would be great practice and help spread the word about all the good you and Haley do.”

Josh wasn’t sure if Becca really grasped how much he wanted to help The Aunt Penny Foundation in any way he could, but he hoped she had a better idea today than she had before.

“So what do you think?” he asked since he couldn’t read her expression. This woman probably excels at poker.

“I must say that after our first meeting, I wasn’t quite sure that you even knew the definition of ‘treading lightly’ when it came to the media. But after reading everything you’ve presented in this paperwork, I’m confident that your ideas are what’s best for the foundation right now.”

Josh did a mental fist pump. “I’m happy to hear that. I only see brightness in the future of The Aunt Penny Foundation.”

They put the paperwork aside just as their food arrived. As usual, lunch was fantastic, and judging by the appreciative sounds coming from Becca, she was enjoying the food just as much as he was.

“Are you really going to make me beg?” Josh asked between bites.

“Are we back on my car fetish?”

“Can you blame me for asking again? It’s not every day that someone knows almost as much about my car as I do.”

“That’s because the Bugatti Chiron is not just any car.” Becca took a sip of water. “Any luxury vehicle enthusiast should be able to name one in the top ten just based off a five-second glance.”

“Only five seconds? What about a solid twenty?”

“Nope,” Becca said, shaking her head. “Would your mother have to stare at you for twenty seconds before identifying you as her child?”

Josh contemplated his answer. “My mother wouldn’t need twenty seconds, but some circumstances may be different.”

“People who love luxury vehicles love them as if they were their children. They shouldn’t need twenty seconds to identify their child.”

Josh took another bite of his food before continuing. “It’s not always black-and-white. For example, what if a child was kidnapped at birth, but reunited with their family as a teenager? The parents would need more than twenty seconds to identify that child.”

Becca shook her head. “Come on, you know very well what I mean.”

“Another example,” Josh said snapping his fingers. “A child given up for adoption and reunited with their birth parents after twenty years.”

“Not a good one,” Becca said. “One of my close friends was given up for adoption and when she reunited with her birth mother at twenty-five, her mother knew who she was immediately.”

“So based off what you’re saying, if it would have taken you twenty seconds to identify a luxury car, you could have had your title of luxury vehicle enthusiast revoked?”

Becca leaned forward. “It never takes me twenty seconds to identify a luxury car. Ten seconds tops, and even then it’s probably because the car was passing by too fast for me to get a good look.”

Josh smiled at her confidence. He’d always been a fan of a good debate and it was refreshing to meet a woman who could keep up with him. He glanced out the window of the restaurant at the parking lot. There were numerous vehicles in the lot that he could ask Becca to identify to test her theory. The prestigious restaurant was crawling with money, and with money came expensive cars.

“If you’re going to ask me to identify one of the luxury cars in the parking lot, don’t bother,” Becca said as she took a sip of water.

“Why not, Ms. Wright? Afraid you’ll misidentify a vehicle and prove your theory false?”

Becca leaned back in her chair. “Quite the contrary, Mr. DeLong. The reason I told you not to bother is because I already identified all the luxury cars in the parking lot in the thirty seconds it took for us to exit your vehicle and enter the restaurant.”

Josh shook his head. “Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I hear it.”

The smirk that crossed Becca’s lips gave him fair warning that he should prepare to be wowed. “I’ll skip your French blue baby and start with mentioning the Mercedes-Benz S-Class in the far right corner of the lot. Then there’s a Mercedes-Benz E-Class two cars down from it. Two BMW 4 Series—one gray and the other white. A brilliant yellow Lamborghini Aventador parked next to the white BMW. A Lexus ES parked in the left corner two spaces away from a classic 1966 Jaguar. And although I’m sure, just like you, most of the owners of the vehicles used valet parking, the smartest owner is the one who probably paid the valet extra to park his or her sexy red 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider in the only semi-discreet spot in the parking lot. That spot also happens to be the closest to the valet desk. You don’t leave classics like the Ferrari unattended for long. The Jaguar owner should probably take notes from the Ferrari owner.”

Josh tried his best to keep a straight face. Who in the world is this woman? He was rarely speechless, but Becca had completely stolen the words from his mouth. There was something about her that challenged him, and finding a woman who truly challenged him had been so difficult, he’d often thought that such a woman didn’t exist. At least, she hadn’t existed until Becca Wright.