Well, today she was going after her fantasy. “Joe, in the long run, this is the best thing for him. This can’t be healthy. He should be married, populating the world with little Averies that he can train in his image. I’m not the woman for him.”
“I don’t know. I think you both are perfect for each other.”
That’s what everyone else said, too. Frankly, she’d grown tired of it. “Then you don’t know me.”
“Guess not.” He cocked his head, studying her, and she wished he could see more inside her than just the facade. “Not going to do it, Amanda. I won’t hurt Avery.”
“Joe, you’re doing him more harm letting him waste his prime dating years stuck on me.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Joe, Avery is thirty. How many dates has he been on?”
Joe thought for a minute. “A handful, I think.”
“How many girlfriends?”
“Besides you?”
She dug her nails into her palms wanting to scream. “I don’t count!” Still, a few people stared.
“None.”
She lowered her voice. “Joe, Avery is probably still a virgin.”
Joe laughed. “Uh, no. There was this…” He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “But that was a long time ago and it’s none of my business.” He took a sip of wine. “I’m not going to do it. There’s got to be a better way.”
There was no other way. “Fine. Name it. You give me some idea of how I can get your brother to move on with his life, and I’ll forget all about the idea. One. Just one little thing I can do.”
Joe sipped his wine, stared at Avery, shaking hands across the room, and sighed in defeat. “Pretend dating, huh?”
Finally. “More than dating. He’s got to be convinced it’s real, passionate, something that will make him think he doesn’t stand a chance. A torrid affair.” She loved the way the words sounded, coming out of her mouth.
He turned pale. “Torrid?”
She nodded. “Torrid.”
Awareness flared in his blue eyes and all that exotic fire shot in her direction. She struggled to breath. He smiled. “Princess, I don’t think you can do torrid.”
“Is that a wager?” she managed.
As quickly as it came, the fire was gone. He was back to looking at her like everyone did. Avery’s girl. “You think this plan of yours will really work?”
“I’m willing to bet on it, aren’t I?” She held out her hand across the table, waiting. “Are you in?”
He stared for a moment, and her heart began to pound. He had never touched her, in twenty-one years, never once. She had dreamed, imagined, fantasized and now she was going to discover how his skin felt against her own. He wrapped one rough, calloused palm over her silky smooth hand and the tremors started in earnest.
“I’m not going to hurt my brother,” he said, his voice sounding faraway because he was still touching her, and her entire nervous system was threatening to explode.
She swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt him either, but I’m not about to marry him just because I think he’s a nice guy.”
He stayed silent for a moment, then dropped her hand. “I’m not going to rub his nose in this.”
Under the table, where he couldn’t see, her fingers traced the spot where Joe had touched her. “Rub his nose in it? You saw him. He doesn’t even believe it. Yet.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Well,” she pretended to think about it for a moment. “We go out on a few dates. Maybe he could catch me over at your apartment a few times…What does Avery usually know about the women you—date?”
Joe smiled, satisfied and smug, obviously recalling past—dates. Amanda wanted to smack him. Not jealous, not jealous, not jealous.
Thankfully, she saw Avery heading back, arrogant and harmless. Why couldn’t Avery be a jerk? It would make things so much easier. Instead, he was like a full-grown puppy dog. She sighed. “Look, Avery’s coming back. Tonight we’ll ease into this thing and just see what happens. Maybe it’ll be easier than you think.” Amanda doubted it, but miracles could happen.
Joe shook his head. “If he gets extra weird, I’m bailing, Amanda. I can’t see how this can be a good thing.”
At last. Acceptance. “Okay, okay. Just let me do the talking.”
He spread his hands wide. “You’re the shyster.”
Oh, fudge, this was going to be harder than she thought. “Cut the cracks. Remember we’re supposed to be deeply in lust.”
Joe just laughed; obviously thinking such an idea was ludicrous. Just you wait, Joe, just you wait.
WHEN AVERY RETURNED, he looked calm as ever. Which could only be a good thing, Joe thought. Somebody needed to be calm. Joe sure as hell wasn’t. Insane was the actual word that flashed in Joe’s mind.
With surgical precision, Avery placed his napkin in his lap; a graceful gesture that was obviously for their benefit. First Avery looked at Amanda and then back to Joe. “Well?”
Amanda began first. “As I said…”
Avery held up his hand. “No. I want to hear what Joe has to say.”
Damn. Joe had never been prepared at school, that’s why he’d been exiled into public education, and he certainly couldn’t win at a debate with his brother. He kept it simple. “She’s right.”
Avery leaned forward and Joe got that awful spider-in-the-web feeling. “Joe, are you really in love with Amanda, or are you just after a temporary diversion that is several plateaus above your normal standards?”
What was he supposed to say? Avery was his brother. He stalled, not quite ready to commit himself yet. “Avery, if I were in love with Amanda, what would you do?”
Avery took a sip of water. “And she was in love with you?”
Joe nodded.
Avery stroked his chin. “If the two of you were truly in love, I couldn’t interfere.”
Amanda shot Joe her female “told-you-so” look. “However,” Avery continued, “I fully expect this little walk on the wild side to run its course after a short time. A very short time.”
Avery lifted his glass and swirled the wine, but Joe wasn’t fooled. This was serious to Avery. “Are you in love with her, Joe?”
He didn’t like lying to his brother; there were better ways of ducking the truth, but maybe Amanda had it right after all. Joe clinked Avery’s glass with his own and nodded.
Instead of dejection, Avery’s smile was full of that same smug confidence that had got him accepted at St. Albans, a scholarship to Columbia. “Then may the best man win.”
Joe closed his eyes and sunk into his seat. No way. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? He was not going to enter into some hellish competition with his brother. When it came to Avery, Joe always lost.
Amanda poked him with her fork under the table and he shot her a dirty look. He didn’t deserve that.
But he’d gotten himself in too far. She’d sucked him right into her little pact with the devil, and so he just smiled weakly. “Yeah.”
This was such a bad idea.
2
IT HAD ONLY BEEN ONE DAY.