Eric, obviously, didn’t share her curiosity. “Think what might’ve happened if we hadn’t been drinking at all.”
“You tell me.” And she truly wanted to know.
For all their mutual flirtation, there were times when she felt he was only humoring her. And, perversely, she wanted to explore that feeling further. She had no desire to be any man’s comic relief.
“Give me a break.” Eric was back to rearranging the bar, moving the pretzels this way, the peanuts the other. “I’m not your type and we both know it. At least we know it when we’re sober.”
She pushed the cosmopolitan away and thought about leaving. Surely she had no face left to lose. “Could you have Jason bring me a diet soda?”
Hands shoulder-width apart on the bar, Eric hung his head. “Ah, Chloe. Don’t do this to me.”
“Don’t do what, sugar?” She really did want to hear his reservations, his doubts, his reasons why joining forces was out of the question. She needed to know the dimensions of the wall she’d be butting her head against.
“Don’t pretend you want something from me that you can’t get from any other man.” His head came up sharply then, and he gestured beyond her, toward the common room and the pub. “In fact, I’ll prove it to you. Ask a favor of any man here and I’ll guarantee you a resounding yes.”
Chloe raised a brow. “As opposed to your no.”
“You got it.”
“Eric, sugar. I’ve been here twenty minutes and there hasn’t been another man who’s said a word to me.” White lies had their uses.
“Only because I’ve been monopolizing your time.”
“You’ve also been giving me your undivided attention and ignoring the other customers sitting at the bar. And neither one of us is the least bit tipsy.” As if to punctuate her statement, Jason arrived with her glass of ice and diet soda. Chloe thanked him and stared at Eric while she sipped.
All he could do was shake his head. “You know, Chloe, I enjoy you too much for my own good. And you know me too well for mine.”
“I suppose you can blame it on Macy. Her scavenger hunt ended up having repercussions I don’t think she ever imagined.”
“Yeah.” He lifted a hand in greeting as a patron took a seat farther down the bar. “I heard about Anton splitting from Lauren.”
“You mean Lauren splitting from Anton.”
“Go ahead. Believe your bogus female facts.” Eric turned back to face her, his expression cocky, smug, totally male. “I’ll stick to the real man’s telling of the story.”
Chloe looked at him for a long, intimidating minute. The noise of the bar continued to burst like balloons over their heads. Glasses clinked and televisions blared and the doors to the kitchen swung inward and out. She toyed with the straw in her diet soda, ran her finger around the rim of the glass, dunked a persistent ice cube each time it resurfaced.
She’d grown up the only female in a household of five males. Eric Haydon could do his best to stare her down, but there wasn’t a question in her mind that she would win the battle of wills. He’d admitted to his curiosity already. All she had to do was keep from revealing too much too soon.
She knew that about men. When they wanted something, wanted it badly enough and had to wait for a woman to decide whether or not they were worthy, men were putty in a female’s hands.
And because that idea was so entertaining, she drove the final nail into his coffin. She looked up, over his head, at the television mounted above the bar. “Who’s winning?”
“Huh?”
“The Astros’ game. Without looking. Who’s winning?”
Eric blinked, then blinked again, as if working to jar loose the subliminally recorded score. “Okay, I admit it. You’ve distracted me. Happy now?”
“I’d be happy with an unqualified admission of your curiosity about what I’m doing here and what I want.”
“I said I was curious.”
“You qualified it by saying the answer is no.”
“C’mon, princess. You can’t expect me to give you an unqualified yes. For all I know, your request involves torture or public humiliation.”
Chloe glanced beyond his shoulder toward two men at the bar. They were cheering on a third, who was working to down a draft beer without stopping to take a breath. The drink dribbled out both corners of his mouth and down his chin, soaking a line down the center of his T-shirt to the crotch of his jeans.
“I don’t think you need me to provide public humiliation.” Shuddering, she tipped her head toward the threesome as proof.
“What do I need you for, Chloe?”
Chloe pretended to consider Eric’s question while inwardly, her mind raced. She really hated the thought of having to turn on her helpless-female bullshit meter.
But over the years she’d honed her shtick to a true science. And this situation, more than any other one she’d been in, merited experimenting with her skills.
She continued to toy with her straw, but now she averted her gaze from Eric’s, keeping her lashes lowered, her pout humble and subdued.
“You’re probably right,” she cooed, and sighed. “I don’t have anything that you need. But you have something that would really help me out a lot.”
“A favor? That’s it? You need a favor?” Wearily, he rubbed a hand down his face. “I thought you were going to want me to jump through seven kinds of hoops or something.”
She wouldn’t yet rule out hoops or tricks. Not until she’d convinced him that he’d be doing this favor of his own free will. Maybe if she played her cards right, she’d even convince him the entire idea, from conception to completion, had been his own.
“Where should I start?”
He peeked at her from between spread fingers. “The beginning is always a good place.”
The beginning was one place to which she preferred not to return. Look at the trouble she was in now because of where she’d begun. “I’m not sure my, uh, situation has a beginning as much as a sudden realization by others that it exists.”
“English, Chloe. Plain English.”
“It’s about work and my reputation for savoring a good expletive.”
Eric let out a loud whoop. “I knew it was bound to happen. You’ve been called on the carpet for your potty mouth, haven’t you?”
“And that’s another thing,” she responded, rising to the debate. “Why is it a potty mouth for a woman and straight business vernacular for a man? Another totally unfair double standard.” It was one of her pet peeves.
Eric was scarcely able to keep a straight face. “I’d think it would be hard to be one of the guys when you work for a company called gIRL-gEAR.”
“It’s perfectly acceptable for me to be one of the guys when it’s a partners-only situation. When we have late night meetings or when we do our thing at Macy’s loft. Make that Lauren’s loft, since Macy is in the throes of cozy domestic bliss with Leo.” Chloe went back to toying with her straw, dunking her ice cube. “It’s when I…forget myself at the office that Sydney tends to get bent out of shape.”
“It’s hard to imagine Sydney Ford getting bent out of shape over anything.”
“She takes the business seriously. And that includes how each of the partners’ actions and reputations reflect