“Not in this lifetime,” Alberto said with a grin.
“Everly, sugar,” Tyler said, looking up from his phone. “We had that thing on Saturday, but I’m sure we can make lunch with Alberto work.”
Her brain slammed to a stop. What the— “We?”
The smarmy snake slid his arm around her waist, pulling her in close to him and making it difficult for her to breathe because of the fury making her heart speed up—and nothing else. The quick pebbling of her nipples and butterflies in her stomach were obviously a side effect of her efforts not to go all Riverside on his rich-boy ass.
For his part, Tyler either lacked a basic sense of survival or thought he was badass enough to take her on. That was the only explanation she could come up with for how he had the balls to circle his fingertips over the small of her waist.
“Don’t tell me you forgot about our cooking class,” he said.
“Bah,” Alberto said with enough authority to declare the matter closed. “Learn to cook another day. I insist you both come over for lunch. Saturday. One thirty. Now I must go see to that fantastico Helene Carlyle, who looks like she’s about to disembowel the nervous artist. We can’t have that. He has talent.”
And with that, he strolled off through the gallery crowd, leaving her fuming beside Tyler.
She pivoted, put steel in her glare, and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “You are not going with me to lunch. And how dare you imply we’re in a relationship to one of my closest friends and best clients.”
“Come on, sugar,” he said, leaning down so that his answer tickled h
er sensitive earlobe. “Don’t be mad at me.”
Just as her body said, “Hello,” her brain said, “Goodbye.” She went with the smart one and pulled away from his distracting touch. “As if there’s any chance of that.”
The teasing upward curl of his full lips did things to her stomach and her lungs’ ability to function.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I’ll flip you for it.”
“Forget it.” Fool me once and all that.
He slipped the same quarter—or one just as beat up—out of the small front pocket. “You’re not still upset that I won the parking spot, are you?”
Mad? No, not exactly. She’d lost fair and square. It’s what happened after that had her fuming upset. At herself as much as him.
The upturn of his lips turned into a full-on sexy smirk. The bastard must think he’d already won. “Double or nothing? And if I win, you throw in lunch with Alberto.”
Would he stick to his word? All signs pointed to no, but the stubborn optimistic side of her that she usually kept under lock and key had managed to escape. Thank God, that little part of her personality wasn’t stupid either, though. “If I win, no cooking for two months.”
A group of five that had been moving from painting to painting chose that moment to look at The Agony of It All next to where she stood with Tyler. To accommodate them, he took a step closer to her. She didn’t move because a couple was in deep discussions behind her about The Excitement of It All, and she didn’t want to intrude. It gave her a chance to be only inches from Tyler, close enough to smell his cologne and feel the electricity buzzing between them bounce off his body to hers. It was horrible.
Yeah, you’ll just relive it tonight when you’re under the covers alone, you big faker.
“Are you trying to starve me to death?” Tyler asked, lowering his voice so she had no choice but to shift so she nearly touched him in order to hear his words.
“Like I could get that lucky,” she shot back.
“Fine.” He held up the quarter, giving her a close-up view of his strong fingers and the unexpected calluses she never expected to see on someone who seemed like he had gotten his money the old-fashioned way—by inheriting it. “You win, no cooking for me. I win, we go to Alberto’s and you pretend to have a good time with me.”
Danger didn’t begin to cover that. Running away was the smart plan. Too bad her body had stuffed her brain in a rock-filled bag and dumped it in the harbor. “All I’m agreeing to do is accompany you. Nothing more.”
He nodded.
Oh hell. She gave in. One lunch for two months of nothing burned was worth the risk. “So flip already.”
“Heads,” he called as he flicked it up into the air.
He caught it and slapped it down on the top of his hand. It was heads.
The lucky little shit. “The odds were definitely in my favor.”