Satisfaction Guaranteed(10)

“Didn’t I tell you?” Doug asks her, narrowing his brow.

“I’m pretty sure I would have remembered it.” Her tone is light, but I get her meaning. “But then, I didn’t even know about your idea till earlier today.”

Ah, that must be for my benefit. She doesn’t want me to think she knew about this when she kissed me.

Doug spreads his arms wide, like he’s a magnanimous king. “I thought it’d be a great opportunity for all of us to get together and chat, see how we envision things working in the next year. My darling daughter,” he says, dropping a kiss to her forehead. Then he gestures to me. “And you’re practically a son.”

Sloane jumps in like a leopard, so I don’t have to. “He’s not your son.”

“And yet I care for Malone like he is,” Doug says, looking at me with import in his eyes.

“And you know I’ve looked to you like a mentor,” I say, emphasizing that word, because I don’t think of him like a father, though I suspect he wishes I did. Just because my dad is gone, and has been since I was eighteen, doesn’t mean I need a replacement. Doug’s been my business go-to guy, and I’ll forever be grateful for the role he’s played.

“Regardless of what we call it, my two favorite people are here,” Doug says, then downs the rest of his glass. “And now I must excuse myself to the little boys’ room.”

He exits, and the tension between Sloane and me tightens like a tourniquet.

I wish Sloane didn’t look so delectable, wearing jeans and a simple white blouse. Her hair is swept up, revealing her neck, a neck that she loves having kissed.

Must wipe thoughts of her erogenous zones from my mind. Besides, I need to know something. I want to be certain she wasn’t aware of her dad’s plans the other night. “Did you know what he had in mind? When I saw you?”

Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “I didn’t know he wanted to do this till this afternoon. It was a surprise to me. He gets an idea in his head, and he thinks he’s doing it the best way, because he knows how much I need this. But I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

That’s when something new and unpleasant occurs—the idea that she’d rather I not be here. “Is it a problem? Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” she says in an instant. “We’re going to be working together. We should be able to work together. I can try not to be around that often,” she offers, “if it makes things easier.”

“Why would it make things easier?”

“If things are awkward.”

“Why would things be awkward? Because of Plant?”

Her brow creases. “Plant?”

I wave a hand dismissively. “Bumper. Salad. Petunia. The guy you were having dinner with the last time I saw you.”

A laugh bursts out and she clutches her stomach. “Basil,” she says, choking on the word as she laughs. “His name is Basil.”

“Basil. Well, there you go. I was close.”

“Basil is a good friend. He’s a DJ. He’s into music. You’d like him.”

Doubtful.

“And you’re staying with him?”

“No. Nor was I dating him.” She stares at me like I’m a curiosity. “Are you jealous?”

I could play this one of two ways. Lying gets me nothing. The truth at least makes this night more . . . illuminating, and I’d really like some more light shed on this woman. “Yep. The full-on, one-hundred-percent, red-blooded kind.”

She swallows. “That’s interesting.”

“And do you think that makes things awkward?”

She licks her lips. “It would be awkward if you were still seeing Clove.”

It’s my turn to knit my brow. “Who on earth is Clove?”

She crinkles her nose, a touch derisively. “Who knows? Whoever the latest woman is who falls at your feet when you sing.”

I smile. “There’s no Clove. No Jane. No Cindy. No Madison. There’s no one.”

“If there’s no Basil and no Clove, why is there all this . . . tension?”

Checking the hall to make sure the coast is clear, I lean closer, my eyes locked on hers. “You know why there’s tension.”

“Why?” Her voice trembles.

Yup, the illumination is indeed growing brighter.

“Because you kissed the fuck out of me the other night, and because I’m still thinking about it. And because if your father wasn’t in the bathroom, I’d kiss you even harder right now. So hard you’d see stars. You’d grab your purse and say, ‘Let’s get out of here right now.’ Because you and I have unfinished business, and you know it.”

She shudders, and a gust of breath seems to pass her lips. Her cheeks flush red, and I love, fucking love, the effect I have on her. Even though I shouldn’t love it. I definitely shouldn’t love it at all. But I do, and I love it more when her tone reveals the truth—it’s breathy and hot as she says, “Is that how you’d kiss me? Like we have unfinished business?”

I lean back in the booth, never taking my eyes off her gorgeous face. “Sweetheart, you know exactly how I want to kiss you. You know exactly what we’d be capable of in bed.”