“Ohhh, you just saved me, thank you.”
“Nah, I saved our asses.” Blake gestures between him and Nate. “You’re mean and cranky before you’ve had your two coffees in the morning.”
What can I say… my brother knows me well. Blake kisses my cheek, and then I turn to Nate, only to find his eyes raking over my body. When he unleashes the full power of his gaze on me, my skin simmers with awareness, blood rushing to my cheeks. Right, so apparently deciding I must forget about my crush hasn’t lessened my body’s reaction to his proximity. It was silly to assume it would all go away just by sheer force of will, but one can only hope.
When he leans down, brushing my cheek with his lips, I swear my skin catches fire. This close, I can smell the faint scent of soap on him, and nothing else. He’s not wearing cologne, but I swear his scent is pure sexiness. If someone could bottle it and sell it, they’d make a fortune.
I school my features when he pulls back, hoping I look like a professional business woman and not a girl with a crush. By the way one corner of his mouth lifts upward, my bet is I’m closer to the second option.
“Let’s start with the tour,” Blake says. For the next fifteen minutes, we explain our vision to Nate, describe how the restaurant area will look, even show him the kitchen, which is ready.
Once or twice I catch him looking at me with what can only be described as hunger, but I do my best to ignore it. Come on, Alice. You just have to get through the day. Then you probably won’t have to see him again while he’s here, and then he’ll be gone anyway.
Once the tour is over, the three of us sit at the small round table next to the bar.
“What more do you need from us?” Blake asks.
“I have an entire report,” I explain. “With financial stuff and—”
“Nah, I just need some catchy stuff so they’ll pay attention. Hard facts too, like how many customers you have daily in your other restaurants, but essentially, I need a good story. What sells ideas is good storytelling. Not everything you tell me will make it on screen. In fact, most of it probably won’t. But first, I need to convince the network to pick this place and not another one.”
He’s not just book smart but also street smart. Sure, he can work his charm in every conversation, but I’m willing to bet anything he didn’t get to the top just relying on that. Since I met him, he never ventured into a conversation without having some strong arguments to dish out. I always admired his intelligence.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
Nate takes out a notepad and a pen from the leather file in front of him—and glasses. I barely suppress a sigh when he slides them on square black frames around his green eyes. His sex appeal just shot through the roof. Normally I don’t find glasses attractive, but they work on him.
“First, how did the two of you end up opening a location together? The family aspect works in your favor—viewers would love it.”
As Blake and I rattle on, answering his questions, he jots down notes, and I can practically hear him spinning a story for the pitch in his mind.
“We should also include a funny story from your childhood. Those things work like a charm in pitches. How about the one where Blake tried to escape t
hrough the window and broke his leg?”
Nate is five years older than me, but he’s also a little younger than Sebastian. As such, he sometimes got involved in the younger group’s shenanigans.
“How about a story that actually makes me look good?” Blake deadpans. Ah, my brothers and their giant egos.
“Self-deprecation works great on camera,” Nate explains, and my brother merely grimaces.
“If I have to potentially make an ass of myself on national television, then by all means, tell the story where I ended up with my ass hanging out because my jeans got torn in the fence.”
I roar with laughter at the memory, and Nate chuckles.
“I still can’t believe you got caught.” There are two sets of twins in my family. Christopher and Max are younger than me but older than Blake and identical, and they used their likeness to pull pranks on us as often as they could. They also got away with it most of the time. Daniel and Blake are the younger set of twins, and while they look nothing alike, that didn’t keep them from competing with Max and Christopher for the title of the best pranking duo. They got caught most of the time.
We continue to answer Nate’s questions for about an hour when Blake’s phone chimes. Picking it up, he frowns at the screen.
“Damn! I have to leave. My bar manager is sick, and someone has to be there for deliveries.”
“I have a lot of info already,” Nate replies, surveying his notes. The glasses slip a fraction of an inch down his nose, and my fingers itch to push them back up. Yeah… I’m not looking for every opportunity to touch him or anything.
“I can tell you anything more you need to know,” I offer. To my dismay, I discover Blake is watching me with narrowed eyes. Uh-oh.
“Alice, can we quickly go over the to-dos for next week before I leave?” my brother asks. Clearly, this is an excuse, because we hammered those details yesterday before we went to Mom’s party.
Nate rises to his feet, his notes still in hand. “I’ll go outside for a few minutes, give you guys time to talk.”