Make Me Yours (Bayshore Book 3)

by Ember Leigh

  Nearing thirty. I don’t know why this is titillating information, but it is. The back of my neck goes hot, and I clear my throat, studying the appetizers like there’s going to be a pop quiz later.

  “So let’s get to the juicy details. Nancy does know everything about you,” she says.

  “What do you mean? She’s been my assistant for the past three years, but she doesn’t know everything.”

  “She said you’d get a sparkling water. And let me guess—you’ll order salmon for lunch.”

  My gaze had been lingering over the half order of salmon with capers and asparagus. I quickly jerk it elsewhere, landing on the gut-busting mac and cheese in the lower left corner. “It’s heart healthy. What’s wrong with that?”

  She snickers, idly fingering a gold pendant hanging around her neck. A breeze flutters past us, lifting the dainty sleeve of her blouse. I can’t look away from her shoulder. At this point, it is the most erotic thing I’ve witnessed all month.

  “What are you looking at?” she asks a moment later, twisting slightly to follow my gaze. I straighten, jerking my chin toward the lake just over her right shoulder.

  “The lake.” Like I’d admit that I was having lustful thoughts about the curve of her shoulder. I can’t tell if I’m desperate or just suffering the normal consequences of not having had sex in over a year. Though when a woman’s billowing sleeve is a turn-on, all arrows are pointing toward desperate.

  “Do you like living on Lake Erie?”

  The way she’s asking sounds like she’s genuinely interested, but I remind myself I just deposited my monthly installment into her bank account. This isn’t a date. “Of course. I couldn’t not live on this body of water. At this point, it’s baked into my DNA.”

  “Okay. So I won’t match you with someone who plans to move into the Arizona desert.” She runs her tongue over her bottom lip, reaching for a stack of folders sitting on the table. She thumbs through some papers, looks up at me, and then launches the question. “So tell me why you’re looking for a wife.”

  “You already know why.”

  “I want to hear it in your words. Right now.”

  I swipe my thumb along my jawline. “There’s a prestigious position opening up on one of the nation’s most famous physician-directed charities. I want it. I need it. I’ll be the youngest physician to ever grace their ranks. But they are painfully traditional, and if I show up to the final interview without a wife, I’ll be out of the running immediately.”

  Her gaze focuses on something beyond the table, and Mr. Future Ripped Earlobe comes back to drop off my drink a moment later. Our conversation is on hold while he offers to take our orders. I urge London to go first, and she orders the exact thing I planned to get. I fight a smile as I ask for the same entrée, and when the server leaves with our menus, I can’t hold back the laughter.

  “What?” she asks, feigning innocence. “It’s heart healthy. Now tell me more about the foundation. Why do you need the position?”

  “It’s a life goal,” I say.

  “Okay. And you don’t want to get married for any other reason than the way it’ll look to this board of directors?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s time to get married, don’t you think?”

  “My opinion doesn’t matter.”

  I narrow my eyes. “It does to some extent. You’re the one calling the shots here.”

  “No, you’re the one in control. I’m just facilitating your decision-making.” She flashes a mischievous grin. “That’s me. Just your regular old belt buckler.”

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. “Do you believe in divorce? I mean, are you looking for this woman with a plan of divorcing her three years down the road, or do I need to find you a long-term convenient wife here?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll make it work either way.”

  “Wow. You must be very flexible in your domestic life.”

  I don’t even know how to respond to that. I barely have a domestic life. “It’s a non-issue. I work all the time anyway, and whoever you find will have to be fine with that. I mean, the situation is pretty black and white. Being any doctor’s wife assumes a majority absence, much less one who gets called into the ER an average of three nights a week at the earliest hours known to man.”

  “You really get called in like that?”

  I nod, reaching for my water. “Without fail. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings.”

  “But you don’t work in the ER.”

  I offer a tight grin. “But I am the only specialist on call. It comes with the territory of being one of few specialists in the network.”

  “Got it. So you want someone who will ultimately approach this as more of a business relationship. Do you want kids, frequent travel, pets, et cetera?”

  The mention of all of those ideas makes a strange heat float through my abdomen. Once upon a time, I wanted all of them. But since making the decision to just get lost in my work and never resurface, they feel more like outdated concepts that no longer have a place in my waking life. Like excessive luxuries I can’t afford.

  “Kids, no. Pets, if she can take care of them. And travel…yeah. I’d like to go to Europe at least once a year.”

  “Any place in particular?” She holds up a hand. “Spare me the London joke.”

  “I don’t know. France.”

  “Okay. Any particular reason? Other than Paris. And again, spare the London joke.”

  My jaw twitches. “It’s a historical gem. You really think I’m that obsessed with seeing your underpants?”

  She wilts, and the daggers she sends me are deeply satisfying. “Fine. France. It made Van Gogh cut his ear off, but okay.” London scribbles some things in her notepad, then her sea-foam gaze rakes up to meet mine. “Date nights?”

  With you? Yes please. If this is her casual interview, I can only imagine what a relaxed evening might entail. “The bare minimum required.”

  She grimaces, returning to her notes. “So you want someone who you almost don’t notice in the home.”

  “Sure. Mostly absent. Low maintenance. And beautiful, of course.”

  “Essentially a Barbie doll,” she clarifies.

  “Right.”

  “Is it okay if we find you a doll who speaks, or do you want her to be mute as well?”

  With that grin she’s clearly joking—but I smirk at her anyway.

  “Well, the motive is clear. Now let’s see about the rest. Your image.” Her gaze snaps back to me, sweeping over my body like I’m just one among many. “Hm.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  She’s scribbling furiously. “What? Am I not enunciating again? That happens sometimes—I’ll try to speak more clearly.”

  My jaw twitches from the effort of hiding a blossoming smile. Jesus, she’s snarkier than I imagined. “My image?”

  “Yeah. Your presentation. I perform my matchmaking based on a twelve-point system. Your image is just one of those points. And it’s mostly fine.”

  “Mostly fine?”

  She doesn’t falter. “Yeah.”

  “So what’s that, a C grade on your little scale there?”

  She purses her lips. “No. I don’t use a grading system. Jeez, Dr. Daly, it’s not like you’re a piece of meat. I’m not giving you a sexability score here.”

  Why did she have to bring that up? Now I need to know how she would rate me. And how she’d rate our server. I need to know that I can at least beat that twenty-four-year-old drifter. At least. But that is so inappropriate, even my innate competitive streak can’t convince me to say the words. “Fine. What would you improve about my image?”

  Now, she gets flustered. Her blouse has betrayed her, allowing me to see the crimson creeping across her chest. “Honestly?”

  “That’s what I hired you for.”

  She waves her pen in a tight circle at me. “Undo another button.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  She shrugs, look
ing back at her notepad. “You asked. I told you.”

  “I can’t unbutton my shirt because women will fall helplessly at my feet.”

  She’s unfazed. “Good. That’ll help the wife hunt.”

  Silence fills the table, and the breeze lifts her sleeve again. I can’t look away. Adrenaline shoots through me, and I lean forward, daring to seek out her gaze. “You said mostly fine. So tell me. On a scale of one to ten.”

  “What?”

  “Where do I fall?”

  London goes very quiet, eyes widening as if I just asked her to take her top off in public. Finally, she blurts, “This isn’t about my preferences.”

  But would you prefer me? My fingers are searching out the next highest button of my shirt before I even make the conscious decision to follow her advice. I unbutton it as she requested and sit back in my chair, unable to hide the smirk. “What about now?”

  London laughs, but it’s wispy. The flush in her chest is back, and for a moment, I’d give anything to feel the pulse skating under her skin. I’m pegging her for an easy 140 bpm. If she faints, I’ll be here to catch her. She reaches for her glass of water and takes a long sip. When the glass touches the table, she sends me a smile.

  “You’ll no doubt score a ten with all of the matches I’ll be finding you.”

  Answered like a true professional. Not even a hint of personal preference, like whether chest hair drives her wild, as I’m beginning to suspect. These are the sort of helpful details I need to begin collecting. She barrels on with more questions about my morals, the rules of my childhood home, the types of questions that you might expect a highly paid therapist to ask.

  And I answer them, as much as I can. But the back of my mind is still sizzling on the abandoned train of thought. That brief window that we both peered into. The one that I could find only because the flush of her neck guided me there.

  I shouldn’t want London. I shouldn’t even be toying with the idea of pursuing her.

  But she makes it hard not to want to try. London has a spark that illuminates the dark, echoey cavern of my heart—of nearly every man in a three-mile radius. I’m no better than Mr. Dangling Lobes over here. London wins people over in a heartbeat.

  Which is the sign of a truly lovely person or a sociopath.

  And something tells me she’s not going to turn out to be Theodora Bundy. Which means I have to figure out what my game plan is going forward:

  Unbutton more buttons, or just be smart and walk the fuck away from this bubbling attraction.

  Chapter 5

  LONDON

  It takes me a full seventy-two hours and three separate sessions with my vibrator to recuperate from glimpsing Dom’s chest hair.

  It was at once unruly and well-groomed. Jet black and virile. The stuff of my fucking fantasies.

  What kind of idiot tells the hottest man in the world to do the one thing that is her kryptonite? This idiot right here. I’m still fuming over my indulgence two days later while compiling the beginning of Dom’s portfolio of matches. I managed to extract enough out of him at our rooftop lunch to get a solid start.

  But this man is a tough nut to crack. I need more of him. For professional reasons only, of course. Even though personally, I wouldn’t mind glimpsing that chest hair again.

  I clench my thighs together beneath my desk, my gaze flitting back to the printout of Dom’s face that I have as part of his file. Christ, could the man be even slightly less attractive? What is in the Daly gene pool? There is some sort of genetic mutation there that scientists should know about. We should probably deep freeze some of the Daly sperm, too, and lock it in a vault in Norway—just in case the world is threatened with losing these blue eyes and that jawline.

  I know Hazel gets me on this one. Ever since she and Grayson started hooking up, she admits that she bought a one-way ticket on the Daly Express.

  And now I worry I’m doing the same. This railway is too modern; too high-speed. As soon as I step inside, I’m whisked away by a conductor who immediately leads me to a personalized cabin with a king-size bed and a life-size replica of Dr. Dom’s surgeon hands.

  Except I can’t be boarding this train, because my career depends on the opposite. On conscious slow steps, like one would have through the shifting sands of a desert.

  The thought inspires distant lyrics in my head, which prompts a spiraling internet search that lands with me blasting Seal’s “Kissed By A Rose” in my office back-to-back three times. Invigorating, though not exactly helpful, because I am still attracted to Dominic Daly afterward.

  I tap my finger against the U key about fifteen times, trying to figure out what the game plan should look like from here. If this were anybody else, I’d have at least three more in-person meetings planned to finalize the approach. And that’s not including the post-date meetups, where we dig deep into what worked and what didn’t work about each match.

  But with Dom? I need to keep our meetings to a minimum. If all our information sessions are going to include me goading him to take his clothes off, then I can’t be trusted to proceed.

  Soon enough, I’ll be competing in the match pool alongside the women I’m scouting. I might even stoop as low as elbowing one in the gut before dinner so that she’s forced to relinquish her spot after spilling red wine all over her white top. Boo hoo, I’ll tell her as she slinks out of the gourmet restaurant. THE DOCTOR WILL SEE ME NOW!

  I rub at my face, as if this will help clear the nightmarish vision from my head. I need to get it together. ASAP.

  “Willow, what would you do?” I ask into the empty office. “And don’t say ‘Listen to Seal again.’”

  Per the ritual of asking my late sister what to do in times of distress, I listen to the silence. Looking for her voice, even though I’m not sure I’d recognize it anymore if I heard it. Looking for some internal twitch in the right direction. Looking for anything.

  It’s been ten years since my sister passed away, but I still think about her daily. I still ask her for advice all the time, even though she was just shy of eighteen when she died from unexpected complications from the flu. Yeah, that’s right—the fucking flu.

  It wasn’t even one of the exotic strains that crop up each year like a fleeting fashion trend. It was just the regular flu. You don’t think it can happen until it happens to your little sister. And then you get your flu shot every year, sometimes twice, just to be sure.

  My gaze falls to the long, skinny pots lining the decorative wall of my office. They are in Willow’s honor. She was a budding pottery artist, and some of my best pieces are hers, tucked away in my apartment upstairs.

  “So, I shouldn’t fuck him, is what you’re saying,” I say into the void. I can imagine her teenager squeal, imploring me to do the opposite. “Got it.”

  I return to my computer with a vengeance. Asking Willow is always helpful, even if my frequent pauses throughout the day might make me look crazy to the rest of the world. As I near my thirties, I no longer care. Let the people wonder why I’m smiling at the sun and taking an extra-long time as I park my car. I have no fucks to give, because Willow’s departure taught me that life isn’t just short, it’s basically over already.

  No more doubting myself, especially when it comes to this asshole doctor. I can hold my own around him. He’s not that hot. More exposure to his hotness will probably help, anyway. Get my cells used to his presence, until someday soon I can be around him without wanting to melt out of my clothes and onto the nearest flat surface, legs spread and waiting for him to join me, a horny puddle of butter.

  Nancy picks up the phone almost immediately when I call. “London! What can I do for you, honey pie?”

  Ooh. Now we’re at honey pie level. It only makes sense that the woman who is most excited about me works alongside the man who is least excited about me.

  “Just calling in so we can keep this train moving,” I say brightly. “Should we skip Dr. Dom and just slip this next meetup into his schedule, you and I?”
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  She tuts. “I can’t do that. Trust me, I’ve tried this approach before, and it doesn’t work. He’s not here right now, but I think I might be able to catch him on his cell phone. Hang tight, sweets.”

  Ooh—now I’m honey pie and sweets. Soon I will boast a list of nicknames fit to open a bakery, which, of course, Dr. Dom would not patronize.

  The line beeps dully every few seconds, and after a few moments I realize I’m clenching my fist under my desk. This man makes me tense. Just waiting to see how he’ll greet me, what he might say, what level of gruff he’ll sound like. Whether or not he’ll hang up on me.

  It’s the kind of thing I could keep track of in a score sheet.

  “What is it?” He barks a moment later.

  I jump in my seat, my forearms going prickly. “Dr. Daly.”

  “Yeah, that’s who you wanted, right?”

  My mouth goes dry. Damn this man. I’m not used to the imbalance he creates. “We, uh…I need to schedule another meeting with you.”

  “For what?”

  “For, uh…the matches.” In the background, I catch hints of beeping and the murmur of other voices. I imagine him in his white coat, and I clench my thighs under the table again.

  “Okay,” he says in a tone that conveys just how unimportant this is.

  I grit my teeth, which allows my thighs to unclench. If this man were even an iota more approachable, softer, or welcoming? I’d be that horny butter all over his toasted bread.

  “What’s your preference for meeting up?” I ask.

  He sighs tersely, sounding more than annoyed. “Listen—”

  “It won’t take too long. Just tell me where you’ll be later tonight or tomorrow night. Whatever works. Trust me, Dominic, I’m trying to make this easy for you. After all, this is what you hired me to do.”

  He pauses, the beeping sounding louder in the background. Finally he says, “Find me at the gym tonight. Eight o’clock. We can chat while I get my work out in. Does that work for you?”

  Does that work for me? It will probably kill me, but fine. It’s like this man is trying to do every sexy thing possible in front of me, just to see if I’ll snap. And lord help me, if he takes off his shirt tonight, I very well might. “Totally fine.”