Open Invitation

by Tiffany White

  “Anybody I know?” Kyle asked when she joined him and Toby ran to catch an elevator back up.

  “What?” Amanda asked, caught off guard by his question. “Oh…ah…no,” she answered, hoping she wasn’t lying.

  “Is there anything I should know?” he asked when they were outside the building.

  “Anything you should know?” she repeated, a nervous tremor in her voice.

  Kyle looked at her curiously. “Yeah, you know, about the meeting with Noah.”

  “Right, the meeting. Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Why don’t we have lunch together and discuss it?” she suggested, wanting to be in a crowd, where he couldn’t make a fuss when she told him about pitching her idea to Noah and getting his approval.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re asking me to lunch?”

  Amanda nodded.

  His eyes twinkled. “Must have been some kiss, huh?” he said, referring to their embrace in the elevator.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m hungry, that’s all.”

  “I noticed,” he growled somewhere around the vicinity of her ear, though she felt it’s vibration in the pit of her stomach.

  “If you don’t behave, I won’t take you anywhere,” she warned.

  “But I’m at my best when I’m misbehaving.”

  “Kyle!”

  “Okay, where do you want to eat? My place?”

  “Not your place,” she objected, remembering the lovemaking that had almost occurred in his kitchen.

  “Your place?” he suggested hopefully.

  “Not there, either.” It was equally as dangerous. The kiss they had shared in the elevator had her hormones zinging through her system. It wasn’t fair that one man should have so much sex appeal.

  “Where, then?”

  “How about the food court at the mall? I’ve got two movies yet to review for the show, so it would be convenient.”

  She didn’t fool him.

  “Chicken,” he taunted, knowing she wanted a crowd around.

  Amanda narrowed her eyes, wishing he hadn’t dared her. From childhood, dares had always been a particular weakness of hers, part and parcel of her stubborn streak.

  Kyle took advantage of her hesitation. “I was thinking of something a little sexier….”

  “No doubt,” she said dryly.

  “Woman, you’ve got the dirtiest mind, I swear. Food. I was talking about food.” The corner of his lips lifted. “You see, I have this unsatisfied craving for pasta.”

  She saw, all right. She knew all about unsatisfied cravings. He hadn’t forgotten that night in his kitchen any more than she had, she was secretly pleased to note.

  “Okay,” she said, giving in to impulse. “Pasta it is. Tell me where there’s a good place and give me directions on how to get there, and I’ll meet you.”

  “I’ve got a much better idea. Why don’t you just leave your car here and come with me. I’ll bring you back later,” he promised, taking her arm possessively and steering her toward his car.

  She hated that she liked it.

  THE RESTAURANT was in an ethnic neighborhood of long, narrow houses with immaculate postage-stamp yards. Specialty food shops, bakeries and Catholic churches gave the neighborhood a European feel.

  When they got inside the restaurant, Amanda’s mouth began watering at the aromas of spicy authentic sauces and fresh baked bread that permeated the air.

  The owner greeted Kyle with warm hugs and Amanda with extravagant compliments, then showed them to a private booth. The table was laid with white linen instead of the red-and-white checkered tablecloth Amanda had been expecting with her pasta. She knew instinctively this was one of those word-of-mouth gourmet restaurants.

  “I fix you something special, Kyle, eh?” the owner said.

  Kyle looked to Amanda to see if she was game.

  She nodded and the owner hurried off to the kitchen.

  “So what do you think?” Kyle asked into the stillness of the room, reaching for her hand across the table.

  She pulled her hand back and hid it in her lap. “It’s dark,” she said, and eyeing the empty tables, added, “and very private.”

  The owner returned with glasses and a bottle of wine. He pulled up a chair from a nearby table and joined them. Opening the bottle of wine, he poured three glasses and lifted his. “So I think we drink a toast to your beautiful new partner, no?”

  “You watch the show?” Amanda asked, lifting her glass to join them.

  “But of course. My wife, Rosa, she no miss. She think Kyle here is a, how you say, punk?”

  “Hunk.” Amanda quickly volunteered the proper word and just as quickly wished she hadn’t when she glanced over to see the look of smug amusement on Kyle’s face.

  Worried that he might have offended Amanda, the owner added, “Oh, but Rosa, she like you, too. Very much. She say you two good together.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her,” Kyle muttered.

  “What?” the owner asked, not catching Kyle’s meaning.

  “Amanda here thinks I’m a pain,” Kyle explained.

  The man chuckled. “Oh, yeah. You are.” He looked to Amanda. “But is okay. His heart in right place.” With that, the owner drained the rest of the wine in his glass and hurried off to the kitchen to check on the special dish he was preparing for them.

  Kyle picked up the thread of their abandoned conversation. “Don’t worry, the food here is excellent. The reason the place is deserted is because the restaurant doesn’t open until four o’clock. The owner makes an exception in my case.”

  “You like breaking rules, don’t you?” Amanda observed.

  “Sure. That’s what they’re for, aren’t they?”

  “No. Rules have a reason for being. They are for everyone’s protection.”

  “Is that why you have so many of them? Is it because you’re afraid of me? Or is it because you’re afraid of yourself?”

  Sparks flashed in her eyes. She kept her voice low, but her words were clipped as she expressed her frustration to him. “I don’t know why you persist in seeing me as some scared virgin who’s afraid of men. I’m not. I like men just fine, and I like sex just fine. So knock it off.”

  Kyle was silent for a moment, absorbing her tirade. “You’re very pretty when you’re angry, you know,” he said, only half-teasingly.

  “That’s an old line and you know it,” she said, refusing to take the bait.

  “Okay, here’s a new one,” he began, lifting his wineglass to toast her. “To the prettiest cohost I’ve ever had.”

  Amanda laughed.

  “I’m the only cohost you’ve ever had.”

  “Picky, picky,” he retorted.

  He swirled the remaining wine in his glass, then glanced back up at her as he took a drink. Setting the glass down, he waited.

  “What?” she asked with a giggle, beginning to feel the giddy effect of the wine.

  “It’s your turn,” he explained.

  “My turn?”

  “Yes. Aren’t you going to say something nice about me now … like I’m the handsomest cohost you’ve ever had?” he teased.

  “I’ve had other cohosts,” she lied, feeling mischievous.

  “Did you date them?” he asked with studied casualness.

  “Who?”

  “These guys who were handsomer than me.”

  “Oh, them. I dated a few handsome guys, sure.”

  “And…”

  “And nothing.”

  “You didn’t fall in love with any of them?”

  “No.” She shrugged. “There was always something missing.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

  “Why are you so interested in my love life?” she asked, the wine making her brave.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to figure out why you don’t like me,” he suggested, continuing to absently run his finger around the rim of h
is wineglass.

  “I like you.” The “I don’t trust you” was understood. “I thought we came here to talk about what Noah and I discussed.”

  Kyle leaned back in his chair. The subject of her liking him was obviously closed. “Okay, shoot. Tell me what you cooked up with Noah while I was off on that wild-goose chase.”

  “I didn’t cook up anything. And the lie about your car being towed was an impulse. While you were checking it out, I got an idea and suggested it to Noah, is all. I thought it would be fun to do a special show for the Academy Awards with each of us making our own set of predictions as to who would win the major awards on Oscar night.”

  “You did what!” Kyle demanded, sitting up straight.

  “I just told you.”

  “I know what you said. I just can’t believe you went behind my back to Noah with an idea for a show without discussing it with me first.”

  “Why? It’s no different than you getting approval from Noah for doing the theme show unscripted without discussing it with me first, except that I didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.”

  “I apologized for that,” Kyle said, as if it exonerated his act.

  “Okay. I apologize. I should have waited for you to return before I talked to Noah. I’m sorry.”

  “Here we are,” the owner said, setting down two plates of pasta and a basket of rolls. Curls of heat steamed up to tantalize them, and their argument was forgotten as they buttered hot, crusty rolls and spun the angel hair pasta around on their forks.

  “Umm, this is heaven,” Amanda said with a sigh, slipping her fork from her mouth. Kyle swallowed and gave the dish his finger-to-thumb circle of approval.

  The owner smiled happily, pleased with their obvious delight in his cooking. “You eat. Rosa, she make special dessert,” he said, heading back to the kitchen.

  “Dessert?” Amanda said questioningly to Kyle, eyeing the plate of pasta in front of her.

  “Yeah. You don’t walk out of here, you roll out,” he answered, lifting his glass of wine.

  They ate in silence, the aroma and taste of the food stimulating their appetites, making them more ravenous than when they came in. The only sounds were the light opera playing over the sound system in the background and the occasional clink of a fork against a plate.

  Kyle finished and sat watching Amanda.

  When she was two-thirds done, she sat back and wiped her lips with her napkin. “Kyle, I can’t possibly finish this and eat dessert, too.”

  He winked and switched his empty plate with hers. “More wine?” he asked, topping off his.

  She held her hand over her glass and shook her head. “I’m already dizzy as it is.”

  “About your idea for this awards show,” Kyle began as he started to finish up the pasta.

  “Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he agreed reluctantly. Unable to finish the last few bites, he pushed his plate away. “It’s a good idea.” He sat back in his chair, sipping his wine and watching her.

  She began squirming anxiously. “What?” she asked, finally unable to bear his amused scrutiny any longer.

  “I was just thinking. You know I’m going to beat the pants off you, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know any such thing,” she objected. “In fact, I rather think it’s going to be the other way around. It’s me who’s going to be leaving you in my dust.”

  Those were exactly the words he wanted to hear. No fool, he had always known there was something missing from all his relationships with women. But until he’d met Amanda, no woman had ever seemed to want more from him than his good looks and sexy body. He knew that to get Amanda’s trust, he had to make her vulnerable to him, make her see there was a sensitive man beneath the public figure he presented.

  To do that, he had to get close to her, and her professional confidence had led her right into his well-laid trap. The one he had been planning since viewing the theme show.

  Lifting his glass, he stared at her over the rim raising his eyebrow as he considered her. Finally he voiced his challenge as if it had just occurred to him instead of being carefully planned.

  “If you’re so all-fired confident in your ability to make a better showing than me in choosing the Oscar winners, perhaps you’d like to place a side bet with me to make things interesting.”

  “You’re on,” she agreed impulsively. “Let’s say a hundred dollars?”

  Kyle shook his head.

  “More?”

  “I thought we agreed to make things interesting,” he challenged.

  “What, then?”

  He studied her through narrowed eyes.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Suppose we each write down a fantasy and seal it in an envelope that we bring with us on Oscar night. After we tape the show, we can go back to your place and watch the Academy Awards on TV to see which of us picked the most winners. Then…”

  “Then…?”

  “The loser has to act out the winner’s fantasy.”

  “No way.”

  Kyle could tell she was intrigued by the idea nonetheless. “I thought so. What happened to that ability you were so all-fired sure of? If you were really confident, you’d agree to the bet because you wouldn’t be afraid of losing.”

  “Okay. It’s a bet! Are you satisfied?” she fumed, taking his dare, unable to bear his smug gloating a second longer.

  Satisfied? No. Not yet, Kyle thought, but he had a feeling he was going to be.

  Very.

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Amanda lay in bed wide-awake.

  Everything had suddenly gotten out of control. Why had she agreed to the bet? What if she lost?

  No, she reassured herself. She was good at what she did. She wouldn’t lose. Besides, she had something more pressing to think about—the telephone call.

  It had been from a New York television syndicate—Westec. They had seen the theme show she and Kyle had done and wanted her to fly to New York to talk with them about a job offer.

  It had taken all her willpower to put it out of her mind while she’d had lunch with Kyle. It was probably the reason she’d agreed to his bet. She knew it was stupid, but she felt guilty that they’d made the offer to her alone. They’d made that quite clear.

  It was a marvelous opportunity; a large promotion meaning more money and more prestige. It was everything she had been working toward.

  So why did she feel so lousy?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AMANDA AND KYLE hardly saw each other in the days before the Oscar show.

  In between sitting through every nominated movie again, Amanda sandwiched a quick one-day trip to New York. The New York television syndicate had given her two weeks to reach a decision about their job offer.

  Kyle was busy shopping for his fantasy. He was going to take such pleasure in winning.

  OSCAR NIGHT ARRIVED and with it Amanda’s case of jitters. She decided she needed every advantage against Kyle to win the bet, so she pulled out all the stops. She would still wear her customary suit and pull her hair up, but with subtle differences a man would notice and hopefully be distracted by.

  She took a long, relaxing soak in a herbal-scented bath to relax before she did her makeup. When she was satisfied with her face, she reached into the back of her closet and removed the outfit she planned to wear.

  The tailored black suit had a side slit that flashed a sleek length of black-stockinged leg. Beneath the suit jacket she planned to wear a black satin camisole instead of a blouse. The same camisole she’d tried on in the dressing room when Kyle had been there. She wondered if he would remember and be distracted by the thought. She hoped so.

  The small black hat she placed on her head was mostly veil. Wiping off her lip gloss, she slicked on red, red lipstick to accent her mouth below the sexy veil.

  Diamond studs twinkled where her brown hair was swept behind her ears.

  Sitti
ng down on the bed, she added the final touch…. Her black leather three-inch heels showed a flash of toe cleavage, and her anklet lay seductively against her silken ankle.

  She stood and glanced in the mirror for a final inspection and decided she looked decent enough to get past the censors, but her outfit definitely said celebration.

  Picking up the small purse of black snakeskin containing the fantasy she’d written, she left for the studio.

  KYLE SAUNTERED INTO the studio wearing a black tuxedo with a wing tip collar, playing his part to the hilt.

  “Amanda here yet?” he asked Noah.

  “Not yet,” Noah answered. “You look like you’re going to be getting some sort of award yourself tonight.”

  “One can only hope,” Kyle said, chuckling to himself. He wondered which prim outfit Amanda would wear for the taping of the awards show. His lips creased into a wide grin when he thought of the purchases he made for her to fulfill his fantasy.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Toby asked, his eyes wide.

  Kyle turned and nearly choked when he saw Amanda. The delicate scalloped neckline of the black camisole lay against her pale skin, enhancing the luscious curve of her breasts.

  Kyle ran his finger under the stiff white collar of his tuxedo shirt. He was in deep trouble. He wouldn’t be able to remember his name much less his Oscar picks if he had to look at Amanda in that outfit on camera. He’d have to remember to keep his eyes off her as much as possible.

  Right, and camels can fly, a voice in his head mocked as she walked toward him, the slit in her skirt baring a length of stockinged leg.

  Amanda stopped to talk to Toby, giving Kyle a chance to regain his breath. He felt as if someone had punched him in his solar plexus. The lady didn’t play fair at all. She’d purposely dressed to destroy his concentration.

  Noah left to talk to the cameraman, and Kyle made his way over to where Amanda stood talking to Toby. One quelling glance from Kyle and the spellbound intern found somewhere else to be.

  “Hi. Bring your envelope?” Kyle whispered, leaning in close so he wouldn’t be overheard. It was a mistake, he realized, as a familiar scent teased his memory. He pulled back quickly to clear his head.