“Oh, I know the place,” he said instead. “Amazing food. Tilly took me there the last time I visited her.”
“Hey, your sister tookmethere as well. It’s how I found the place.”
Something flicked over his face. “You hang out with Tilly often?”
“Not that much. Although she’s the closest thing I have to a sister now Elisa and Bria live here in Australia. I’m usually at work, and she’s usually in the lab, but when we do…” The memory of her and Tilly’s most recent night out made her chuckle. It had been a wild night of dancing, followed by a hangover that even a breakfast burrito wouldn’t fix.
Mick snorted around a grin. “Don’t believe anything she says about me.”
“Hate to bruise your ego, but she’s never said a word about you.”
He huffed. “Well, I’ll have to have a word with her about that.”
“Should I point out you just told me not to believe anything she says about you?”
“Good point. From now on, only believe anything you hear about me from me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “So I’m to believe you’re a better singer than Nick Blackthorne, and a better chef than Angus?”
He laughed. “Okay, only believe anything you hear about me from me starting now.”
“What are you like at dancing?”
Why did she ask him that?
“The worst.”
Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. “I have no idea whether to believe you or not right now.”
He drew a little closer. Enough to make her heart skip a stupid beat. “It’s all part of my plan to keep you guessing about me. Keep you thinking about me.”
Her chest tightened. The deep timbre of his voice, the blueness of his eyes, the way his words made her nipples grow hard… “I hate to burst your bubble, Mick, but I don’t think about you at all.”
Something glinted in his eyes, and his head dipped closer to hers. “Hmm, why don’t I believe—”
The distinctting ting tingof a spoon tapping against a crystal glass filled the air and silenced the room. Heart pounding, Zeta stepped away.
Oh God. Oh God, what…what…
“Alright everyone,” the wedding’s MC—a man wearing a purple velvet suit, black shirt, and Kermit-green tie—called, tapping a spoon to the glass in his hand again. “We need your butts in your seats and your attention on the dance floor, because it’s time for Owen to make a fool of himself with the beautiful woman I’m still convinced he paid a ridiculous amount of money to marry him.”
“Oi!” Owen protested, rising from his seat and holding out his hand to Bria. “Enough of that, Lawso.”
“It wasn’t a ridiculous amount,” Bria said, taking Owen’s hand and getting to her feet. “Maybe a stupid amount of money is more accurate.”
Mick chuckled beside Zeta, and before she could stop herself, she flicked him a smile.
Their eyes connected. Held.
Her breath caught.
His jaw bunched.
And thentheNick Blackthorne started singing “Tonight”, and Zeta tore her focus back to her sister and her new brother-in-law as they moved together on the dance floor. If she didn’t force herself to watch the bridal waltz begin, she’d do something really stupid like tangle her hand into Mick’s hair, draw his head down to hers, and kiss him.
* * *
For fuck’s sake,mate, think of something gross.