“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said, blushing. “Men are okay to party with, and to hang out with, and to have fun with, but for me, I was never really . . . turned on,” she said, her voice dropping into a whisper, “by any of them. They were too young. Too annoying. I got sick of them always asking me what I wanted to do for a date,” she said in a burst of honesty. “I mean . . . why did I always have to be the one to decide?” She did a double take when she noticed his small smile. “What?” she asked.
“You’re a natural sexual submissive, Francesca. A more natural one I’ve never seen. You’re also singularly bright, talented, independent . . . full of life. A unique combination. Your frustrations in dating likely stem from the fact that men were striking the wrong chord with you, so to speak. There are probably only a handful of men on the planet that you would submit to.” He picked up his glass and watched her over the rim as he took a sip of ice water. “Apparently, I’m one of those men. I consider myself to be very lucky for it.”
She made a scoffing sound, all the while studying him nervously. Was he serious? She recalled how he’d used the word submissive that night he’d spanked her in his penthouse. She didn’t like what the word implied about her, and had been regularly pushing it out of her awareness ever since then.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said dismissively. This time, however, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said, couldn’t stop recalling her exhausted disgust when a man on a date had to drink too much before he made a move on her sexually, when he behaved indecisively or immaturely. . . .
. . . when he acted the exact opposite of Ian.
His brow quirked up slightly, as if he’d seen the pieces lock together in her brain.
“Can we please talk about something else?” she asked, staring out at the people strolling by on the sidewalk.
“Of course, if you wish,” he agreed, and Francesca suspected his acquiescence was so easy because he knew he’d already made his point.
“Look at that,” she said, nodding to three young people whisking past the bistro on motor scooters. “I always wanted to rent one when I was in Paris. They look so fun.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked.
She really blushed this time. She glanced around, hoping like crazy she’d see their waiter coming with their entrées.
“Francesca?” he asked, sitting forward slightly.
“I . . . uh . . . I . . .” She closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t have a driver’s license.”
“Why not?” he demanded, looking puzzled.
She tried to shrug off her mortification, not sure why she was feeling it so strongly with Ian about this particular topic. All of her friends knew she didn’t drive. Lots of people in the city didn’t. Caden, for instance, didn’t have a car.
“In high school, I didn’t really have anywhere I needed to drive to, and my parents didn’t push it. I opted out of driver’s ed,” she said hurriedly, praying he didn’t observe her sidestepping of the truth.
The truth was, she’d been at her heaviest when she’d been sixteen. She daily thanked God her body had been youthful enough to sustain the abrupt weight loss she experienced at eighteen. Much to her amazement, there had been no lasting scars from those weight-laden years of her life. The weight had melted off her as if it truly had been a traumatic experience she could heal from versus a measurable biological event.
But Sweet Sixteen had been Miserable Sixteen to Francesca. She’d been slated to take driver’s ed with three other girls in her gym class, three girls who—by a horrible stroke of fate—regularly bullied her. Gym class had already been a daily torture for her. The idea of spending an hour in confined quarters with three sneering girls hiding their laughter at every clumsy move she made, and a young male gym teacher vaguely sympathetic to the other girls’ disdain, had been too much for her. Her parents had suspected this was the reason for her avoiding driver’s ed, and hadn’t insisted she take the class.
They were likely just as mortified by the idea as she had been.
“By the time I moved to Chicago, there was absolutely no reason to get a license. I can’t afford a car, the parking, or the insurance, so it became a moot point,” she explained to Ian.
“How do you get around?”
“The El, my bike . . . my feet,” she said, grinning.
He shook his head once, briskly. “That’s not acceptable.”
Her grin faded. “What do you mean?” she asked, offended.
He gave her an exasperated glance when he noticed she’d once again taken umbrage. “I just mean that a young woman like you should have the very basics of control in her life.”
“And you think driving is a basic of control?”
“Yes,” he replied so matter-of-factly that a surprised laugh popped out of her throat. “It’s a developmental milestone, getting your driver’s license, no different than taking your first step . . . or learning how to control your temper,” he added significantly when she opened her mouth to argue. The arrival of their entrées temporarily postponed their charged conversation.
“There’s a reason for all the sayings, you know,” Ian mused a moment later, lazily watching her pour salad dressing onto her greens. “The ones about being in the driver’s seat, driving your fate, power driving . . .”
Her gaze flew up to meet his stare at the last, recalling vividly how he’d described his claiming of her at the St. Germain last night. His small smile told her he knew she was remembering.