More likely, the music, the candles, the fake fire in the uber-contemporary fireplace, all of it was habit, typical womanizer moves, nothing to do with her. How could it be when she was the fade-into-the-background New Girl? A girl who normally objected to this kind of seduction-by-the-numbers on principle. But if she planned to use the next six weeks to break open her shell and embrace her sexuality, well, she needed to loosen up. The music helped.
And maybe the wine, too.
As she stood there, debating the merits of a Cabernet indulgence—a glass or two might facilitate the unmasking of the siren—Nick came out of the kitchen holding two plates piled high with food. Her mouth watered. A man who cooked was sexy. As if he needed any extra appeal.
He tossed his dangerous, full-wattage smile, the one that made her knees weak and her brain skid to a standstill. “Hope you like chicken parm.”
Chicken parm. She glanced down at her feet—again, speechless—her heart hammering against her ribcage. The music, the view…the man held her spellbound when she wanted to be adventurous and flirty. Yes, she loved chicken parm. So tell him, a voice inside her prodded, but no words came to mind. She blinked. Blinking is not sexy. Respond. Verbally. He’d made chicken parmesan—her all-time favorite. Oh, please say something, the siren urged, impatiently, anything.
“Love it.” The two words tumbled from her lips in a voice a hint lower, huskier than usual, more Marilyn than Marianne. She raised her gaze to meet his. “I love it.”
His audacious smile momentarily faltered as his eyes narrowed on her face with curiosity. Dangerous, identity-busting curiosity.
Panicked, she looked away and stabbed at her glasses. Marianne didn’t want him to know she’d been the girl to jump out of his birthday cake. Or rather, in an alternative universe she’d secretly love him to guess, but in this reality—a reality where a man like Nick would never want the quietly resolved girl with the glasses—no. She simply needed a date and a chance to proceed with her plan to test drive her inner seductress, but with caution. Be good. But not too good. Nothing she couldn’t handle, she thought, taking a seat on the rich leather sectional and praying for a miracle.
Nick set the plates down on the glossy black coffee table. “Then, let’s dive in and get to work.” He sat down next to her, close enough to make her heart rate jump up on the Fitbit scale. “Get to know each other’s intimate details.” He winked, flirtation his second nature.
She swallowed, hard. With him sitting so close, looking yummy and relaxed in his dark jeans and sexy bare feet, the probabilities were high that she’d have a tough time focusing on the details of her life. Details of any kind. Especially the intimate kind.
But Nick was right. If this plan was going to work for either of them, they needed to get down to the nitty-gritty. She took a long sip of the Cabernet he’d poured, grateful for something to do with her hands other than run them over his tempting, broad shoulders. Not much of a drinker, she’d feel the alcohol ease her nerves sooner than most. A good thing, too, because watching Nick dive into his dinner, all informal and at ease, made her feel cozy and at home. An unnerving feeling since her home was across town. Six weeks was all she’d get in this place.
Nick smiled over at her. “What do you say we play a version of twenty questions? Make the whole getting to know each other easier.” He took a bite of the chicken and chewed. Wow, even the way he chewed was sexy. “If we’re going to pull this off, we need to be on the same page with the details. I’ll start, and we’ll alternate questions until we’ve got it down.”
Okay, counselor, she thought, ignoring her food in favor of another sip of the wine. She reminded herself he only wanted the partnership. Given detailed insight into her life, his ability to pretend he was in love with her could be dangerous to her infatuated heart.
“Obviously, I fell in love with you at first sight.” More wine, more wine, more wine. “But where did we meet?”
“At Smart Cupid,” she said, immediately. “Makes sense. Better yet, it’s true.”
“Not a very romantic meeting, though,” he said, pointing his fork in her direction.
Not for him, maybe, but she could still remember feeling dizzy at the sight of him, so mind-blowingly handsome, the thought of him had wreaked havoc with her concentration for weeks.
“What if we met at a Yankees game?” he continued, and she blinked her way back to the conversation. “We both went for the same foul ball, your glasses went flying. I caught the ball and gave it to you and the rest, as they say, is…forever.”
Her brows snapped together. “Except the statistical likelihood of a ball being hit toward you and you actually catching it is somewhere around .0008 percent.” Another sip and she traded the wine for dinner. “Besides, I don’t think anyone would believe I was at a Yankees game.”
“Probably not.”
“Not when the Mets are so much better.” She took a bite of the chicken and sighed with pleasure. “This is delicious.”
“Thanks.” His eyes narrowed on her face. “Are you really a Mets fan?”
Another bite. “Really a Mets fan.”
He shook his head and refocused on his meal. “Well, I won’t be taking you to a game in the next six weeks,” he said, as arrogant as any Yankees fan she’d ever known. “And you’re right—better go with the truth. No one will believe I fell head over heels for a Mets fan.”
Head over heels. Honestly, who’d believe a man as flat-out gorgeous as Nick would fall in love with her on any given day, much less head over heels?
“You’re up, Mets fan.”
With the easy comfort she so envied, Nick twisted some spaghetti onto his fork and lifted it to his kissable mouth. She wanted to be that comfortable in her own skin. She wanted another chance to kiss that mouth. Her fork clattered onto her plate. She felt a flush burn across her skin as she picked up the utensil and deliberately forked another piece of her dinner. No, her fingers hadn’t just gone limp. No, she hadn’t been staring longingly at his lips.
“Best childhood memory.” Her words rushed ahead to cover her tracks.
Nick cocked an eyebrow. “That’s a tough one…not many to choose from,” he said, in a way that managed to seem boyish and vulnerable, as if the memories bothered him more than he’d let on. “You know about my father from Jane, the gambling, his taking off, leaving us with more debt than my mom could handle. A helluva mess. She worked a lot, my mom.”
The glow from the television illuminated sadness in his impossibly blue eyes. A kind of loneliness, a feeling she understood completely. What she managed with statistics and computer code, he controlled with distance and swagger. But they each spent a lot of time alone.
“Occasionally, my father still contacts me.”
“Really? I didn’t think…”
“Jane doesn’t know. Neither does Jake.” He swirled more pasta onto his fork. “Mostly he calls when he needs a little money, sometimes just to remind me how much I’m like him.” He raised his eyebrows. “But there were good times. Mostly, I remember Jane and Jake and me, and of course, Charlie, getting into trouble. Boosting lawn chairs, tossing eggs at windows and taking off, running like hell, trying not to get busted.”
Marianne smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “Sounds like fun. Ever get caught?”
“Fun, yes. But did I get snagged?” He shot her a look that was all kinds of doubtful. “What about you? Ever get in trouble when you were growing up in…?”
“Manhattan,” she said, finishing the question. “And, no, I was a rules girl. Never any trouble, always meeting expectations. But summers at the beach were fun. My cousins would come down to the house…”
“In the Hamptons?” Her short nod served as her response, so he continued, “I bet you were cute, all towheaded and tennis-tanned.”
Such a heartbreaker, the man would flirt with a scarecrow if it wore lipstick and a skirt, but the truth was she’d never been all that cute. Too curvy, too young, she’d buttoned up around eleve
n years old and kept her sunburned nose in a book or computer, preferring the solitude to the teasing of the boys on the beach. Inexplicable curves, glasses, braces—the effect was awkward rather than adorable. “No, never very cute. Or towheaded. I spent a lot of time reading or banging on the PC.”
Nick set his plate back on the coffee table and settled into the corner of the sectional. “That’s right, you’re my sister’s computer girl, the one who designed the app she bet on last year. Nice job, by the way, backing Jane into a corner over Charlie.”
“Well, she caused most of that trouble by herself, but…” She offered a small smile at his backhanded compliment, unsurprised to hear he was only putting the pieces together now. As far as he’d been concerned, she may as well have been invisible. “Before Jane gave me a job, I was hacking out a future as a mid-level broker.”
“On Wall Street?” he confirmed. “Pretty ambitious stuff. Why’d you leave?”
Anxiety twisted in her chest. No one had asked her that particular question in months, and it was a question too complicated to answer over chicken parm. She needed to tell him before her dad’s homecoming—and she would—just not tonight. Her father’s conviction and the resulting rumors had made her life as a trader too difficult to continue. But that was all over now—in the past where it belonged.
She offered a less complicated answer, one that was partly true considering how her engagement had unraveled after the arrest. “Man trouble?”
“Not of your own making?” Touché on the reminder she’d called him out for his own brand of relationship trouble.
She smiled. “No, not of my own making.”
Nick returned her smile. “This was your last relationship?”
“My only relationship,” she confessed. Well, only intimate relationship anyway, one that made her regret how long she stayed all reserved and buttoned-up. “And you? How many relationships are included in your romantic past?”
“Another good one,” he said, furrowing his brow. “I don’t know the number, not exactly, anyway.” He eased back against the cushions, apparently nonplussed by the fact that counting his ex-lovers required an abacus and a formula-ready calculator.
Marianne shook her head, disinclined to talk about the letdown of her engagement, or Nick’s serial dating ways, not now, not in this perfectly beautiful place, with this gorgeous guy. She’d wanted to release her siren a little bit, not discuss her cheating ex with her current sexy crush. Talk about dating mistake number one.
Maybe her ex-fiancé was right to call her hopeless, too timid to be any fun in or out of the sack. Her heart flinched at the memory of her willing, tentative body, naked save a new pair of satin panties she’d picked up to surprise him, curling away, hiding from the look in his eyes as he spoke the words that tore her apart. Timid. Hopeless. The original ice queen. But she’d never felt frigid or cold. Awkward, yes. Unsure, absolutely, but never frozen inside.
No longer hungry, Marianne set her fork neatly on the plate and placed it on the table. “We should cover some of our favorites,” she said, desperate to return to the former easy fun of the game. “Favorite color. Movie. Food?”
Nick waited, his intelligent gaze seeming to gauge her mood before deciding to take the left turn along with her. He smiled and said, “Blue, anything starring Steve McQueen, and The Dirty Burger from The Red Cat in Brooklyn.” He shot her a back to you expression.
“Blue, From Here to Eternity, second only to The Misfits, and anything from the whole foods counter at Gristedes,” she joked. “You are a good cook, but I buy takeout.”
He picked up his glass and took a sip of the wine. “I like takeout. But I can teach you a few tricks in the kitchen—if you want.”
She imagined heating things up in the kitchen, learning a trick or two, even moving past her man trouble. Maybe. Next question. “Favorite place in New York?”
Nick gave her another assessing look, and then, in one enviably smooth move, he took her hand and pulled her off the couch. “Come with me.” He stepped around the coffee table and strode toward a room in the front near the windows.
“Where are we going?” she asked, stumbling in an effort to equal his initial long strides.
“To my favorite place in New York.” He slowed his pace and walked with her across the room and into his office. Once inside, he set his glass down on the desk, let go of her hand, and opened the closet to reveal a spiral staircase. “Up we go.”
Her eyes narrowed at the precarious-looking steps to nowhere. “Really?”
“Really,” he said, ushering her into the closet.
Marianne gave him an uncertain look, but he stood there, hands on his hips, looking like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Go ahead,” he said, “I promise you won’t regret it.”
Her hands gripped the railing, and she started up the staircase. The metal felt cool on her bare feet, and as she climbed, her hips angled to negotiate the tight space. She glanced over her shoulder as she moved higher, and yes, he was looking.
A wicked smile creased his face, a clear sign he was enjoying the view. He ascended a few steps and leaned closer in order to reach past her and enter the lock’s code. His nearness made her head spin, and she held the railing a little tighter. His smile widened. “Keep going.”
She pressed open the door and was rewarded with a view of the city that left her completely breathless. “No wonder this is your favorite place in town.”
“Reason I bought into the co-op.”
“Do you—?” Her sweeping gesture encompassed the rooftop garden.
“No, I hire someone to take care of the place.”
Her eyes took in the border of wild lavender and overflowing pots of green leaves and bright red flowers, a small natural oasis suspended against the urban skyline. “Oh, I’d love to take care of this place—it’s beautiful.”
“You should plant something while you’re here. Add your touch.” But all she heard were the words, while you’re here, a clear reminder of the fact that she was temporary.
He placed his hand on the small of her back. “If you stand in this corner, you can see all the way to Brooklyn.”
His hand moved away, and he hooked both thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans. So relaxed and laid-back. She wanted to feel that way, wanted to crawl inside that kind of comfort. She turned back toward the view. The white noise of the city filled the silence between them. Standing with Nick, looking out over the city, she felt light years from her usual routine, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so charmed by something unexpected.
“A world away,” she said.
“A world away,” he agreed, a distant expression carved into his handsome face. “A far cry from Brooklyn.” The sardonic timbre in his voice was not lost on Marianne, and she considered asking for more details, but the easy cool she admired was already back in his voice. “Of course, this is where I proposed.”
The shift in his manner was so lightning-quick that she blinked, not quite following.
But when he grinned over at her, the pieces fell back into place. “Got down on one knee, the stars shining above us, the city at our feet, a hot kiss at the end.”
Her cheeks warmed and she wondered what that dreamy moment would feel like with a man like Nick. “Quite a romantic proposal.”
“Quite.” He looked over at her, smiling that irresistible smile, and there was no reason to wonder why women fell at his feet. His gorgeously naked feet, she thought, glancing down at the flagstone. He playfully bumped her shoulder with his, more Brooklyn kid than SoHo bad boy. “If you were to be kissed in this place…how would you want to be kissed?”
“To be kissed?” She bit down on her bottom lip. He was talking about kissing. Not that his casual mention of kissing her, here, in this beautiful place meant anything. Flirtation was a simple reflex for the man. Nothing to do with her.
He bent his head to try and catch her eye. “A kiss may be required at some point.”
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��Required?” Marianne drew in a steadying breath, but it failed to calm her nerves. He smelled so good, so clean and masculine, but she wasn’t 100 percent sure about the whole siren, unkinking the ropes situation. If he was going to flirt with her, the way he was flirting now, she needed all her faculties to manage the hypnotic effect.
He leaned closer, a teasing expression on his face. “Most engaged couples do kiss.”
Of course, he was right. Statistically speaking. If she and Nick were going to make their faux engagement look real enough to convince his colleagues and make her ex wish he’d never shacked up with leather and lace, then…kissing was called for. Besides, kissing wasn’t sex. Kissing was kissing. Kissing she could handle.
A quick one. Semi quick, anyway.
Like the night of his birthday party. Except without the Cinderella finale.
Ready or not. She adjusted her glasses against the bridge of her nose. “Did you know on average, a person spends two weeks of his or her life kissing?” Obviously, she’d not been ready. She was making the whole thing sound like a science experiment. “Or more precisely, 20,160 minutes.” She blinked twice. Wow, had she really just reduced kissing to a calculation? Talk about un-sexy.
“Interesting stat.”
Her heart started racing. The closer he came, the more her nerves fired in a strange, new, haphazard way that confounded her thoughts. She forced her brain to focus. “Yes, and did you know that a real kiss quickens your pulse to over one hundred beats a minute?”
“No, I did not.” Looping a wayward strand of her hair around his index finger, he tilted forward until he was close enough to whisper. “But I think it’s a theory worth testing.”
He smiled. She smiled back. His hands moved to frame her face, tilting the roof on an invisible axis and seemingly tossing them into the middle of the city’s twinkling lights and the stars. And then…he kissed her. Her eyes dropped closed as his lips moved across hers in a sweet, mesmerizing kiss that seemed to shift the ground beneath her feet. A sigh fell from her parted lips, inviting him closer. And he kissed her. Kissed her the way he’d kissed her in her dreams and, when he pulled away, the lingering effect left her dizzy.
Unexpectedly His Page 5
