Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(38)

“So, you and Dylan with a Y. Still a thing?” He kept his voice low to match hers.

Naomi shrugged, not about to tell him that her agreement to going out with Dylan in the first place had only been a knee-jerk reaction to seeing him with Lilah. And she definitely wasn’t about to tell him that she’d specifically used tonight to fulfill that date obligation because a dinner party felt preferable to spending one-on-one time with Dylan.

“TBD,” she answered noncommittally. “What about you and Claire?”

His eyes dragged to the blonde. “She got my number through a friend. Said she needed a no-strings companion to get a match-making friend off her back. I didn’t realize she meant Audrey until we got here.”

“How’d Lilah feel about that?” Naomi asked casually, reaching forward and picking up a carrot off Audrey’s elaborate crudités platter.

He said nothing until she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“Lilah and I didn’t work out.”

Naomi’s heart did something stupid, and she mentally shut down the idiotic organ. Remember who he is. Remember that he made your life miserable. Remember that he lied to save his dad and ruined your mom’s life.

But it was getting harder to reconcile this man who seemed to reel her in with every encounter with the little boy who’d been a jerk. Plus, hadn’t Naomi known for years that her mother had made it her life’s mission to blame other people for her situation? If it hadn’t been the Cunninghams, it would have been someone else.

“Did Audrey know you were bringing Dylan?”

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

He nodded back at the dining table behind them. She saw immediately what he meant. “Oh, Audrey.”

He laughed. “Yeah.”

Audrey had placed herself and Clarke at either end of the table—Naomi would bet that it wasn’t the first time Clarke had played her platonic plus-one in a game of setup. The name cards facing Naomi and Oliver read Claire and Dylan, which meant that Naomi and Oliver were seated on the opposite side of the table.

Side by side.

Naomi was going to kill Audrey.

“We could switch them,” he said, looking at Naomi out of the corner of his eye. “Really mess with her plan.”

“Tempting, but I’d never hear the end of it.”

“True, and my mother would roll over in her grave. The woman used to spend hours planning her dinner table.”

Naomi flinched at the mention of Margaret Cunningham, but Oliver was sipping his champagne and missed it.

“Did Claire mention me in the invite?” Naomi asked curiously.

He glanced down at her, his blue eyes landing on her mouth for a second too long before meeting her eyes. “She did.”

“And you still came?”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “What dude doesn’t want to spend Saturday night sitting next to a woman who hates his guts?”

Oliver glanced down with a wry smile when she didn’t reply. “No denial, I see.”

“Sorry.” She looked away from where she’d been staring absently at the table. “Was just wondering how we’re going to manage the wine with dinner. No mugs.”

“Ah, now see?” Oliver said lightly. “We do have a thing.”

“Quit making it weird.”

“It’s hard for you, huh?” he said with faux sympathy.

“What?”

“Dealing with your attraction to me.”

“Yes. Yes, very much. Which is why when Audrey asked me to bring a date tonight, I called Dylan instead of you.”

“Yes, you seem very into him,” Oliver said with a deliberate look toward Dylan on the other side of the room.

“And you into Claire.”

“I never said I was into Claire.”

Naomi’s heart tumbled in her chest, but just when she hoped he’d say more, Audrey came toward them. “Okay, here we are!” she announced proudly, bringing a platter of bruschetta to the counter. “I present my gorgeous tomatoes, as well as Clarke’s hack-job bread.”

“It’s bread. It’s supposed to taste good, not look pretty,” Clarke protested.

“It can do both.”

Clarke shook his head and picked up a piece of the bread, taking an enormous bite and facing the group. “This is my bad, guys. I got her a cooking class for Christmas, and she’s been insufferable ever since.”

Conversation turned briefly back to the Yankees, then some exhibit at the Met that Naomi could not have cared less about, and then, as the group began to loosen up with the wine flowing a bit more freely, onto more interesting topics. Most embarrassing TSA story (Claire had won, with an anecdote of her fourteen-year-old self enduring a male TSA agent rifling through her backpack stuffed mostly with maxi pads), and then back to the topic of museums, at which point everyone confessed they didn’t give a rat’s ass about the new exhibit.

By the time Audrey pulled a butternut squash lasagna out of the oven and put Claire and Dylan to work taking food to the table, Naomi was just the tiniest bit tipsy, a little bit relaxed, and having the best time she could remember in ages.

She jumped at the brush of fingers against the nape of her neck, snapping her head up to give Oliver a startled look.

“Easy,” he murmured. “I was just going to fix your dress. The tag’s sticking out.”