But it had been a decade. Sam had had a freaking decade to stake his claim on her.
He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.
No more waiting, Riley.
She took a deep breath and switched her phone off altogether before giving her date a warm smile. Congratulations on your promotion, Steven Moore. You’ve just become Mr. Good Enough.
She waited for a little thrill of anticipation to shiver down her spine.
Nothing.
Not that she’d been expecting it.
Lucky for both of them, Steven’s personality was slightly more appealing to her than his looks. Slightly. Granted, he didn’t have Sam’s dry humor, or …
Stop it. Sam Compton does not want you.
The thought hurt. The thought had been hurting for years. But the man hadn’t once tried to move them out of the “squabbling sibling” zone they’d been in for more than a decade. And while Riley liked to consider herself bold in most areas of her life, she drew the line at going out on that limb with Sam all by her lonesome.
Her pride had limits. So did her heart.
Steven topped off her wineglass with the last of the rather excellent Chablis he’d ordered. She was more of a whisky girl herself, but fancy white wine did the trick too.
“So you’re good with splitting crème brûlée?” he asked after his ten-minute perusal of the dessert menu.
Good with crème brûlée? Yes. Splitting? Not so much.
“Sounds perfect,” she said, giving him a steamy look.
For a second, Steven looked just the slightest bit dazzled at her smile, and Riley stifled a sigh. Not because the attention wasn’t flattering. It was.
It was also been-there-done-that.
How many dates had she been on just like this one, with the hard-to-get reservations, and the mouse-sized servings, followed by let’s freaking split dessert? Dozens.
Then again, this wasn’t just any date.
This was the fifth date with the same guy.
And every woman knew what that meant. Or at least, every woman who wrote about the dating process for a living knew what it meant.
Hell, Riley wasn’t entirely sure that she or one of her friends hadn’t invented the rule somewhere along the way.
That was one of the unexpected perks—or hazards, depending how you looked at it—of writing for the top-selling women’s magazine in the country: You got to write the rules.
And as one of Stiletto’s primary relationship columnists, Riley had done a fair amount of writing about the fifth date.
Or rather … the after-party of the fifth date.
So yeah. Riley knew what tonight meant, and from the way Steven’s bland gaze kept dropping to her cleavage, so did he.
Again, Riley waited for that tug of anticipation low in her belly.
Again, nothing.
She gave a mental shrug and took another sip of wine. It had been worth a shot. The night was young. Maybe Mr. Good Enough was just biding his time to light her fire.
Although if that were the case, the man really should have ordered two desserts, because nothing lit Riley’s fire like food, and this uppity place hadn’t even offered a decent bread basket, just a weird little seeded-roll thing the size of a tangerine.