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“You’re just thinking about that now?”
“Well, I didn’t think you were going to accept,” Colin said with the innocence of the perpetually shortsighted.
“Okay, fine. What do you want? Money? A trip to Vegas?”
“Your office.”
Mitchell stared at him. “What do you mean, my office?”
“I want to trade offices.”
“Why? They’re exactly the same. Same size, same floor …”
Colin shook his head. “You can see the Statue of Liberty from yours. I have that building in my way.”
“Trust me, the statue is a tiny little dot from my office. Why don’t you just take the ferry if you want to see it?”
But Colin had a stubborn set to his mouth, and Mitchell relented. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the view from his office. Not that it mattered one way or the other—Mitchell had no intention of losing.
“Okay, fine,” Mitchell said. “I date a girl and dump her, I get Yankee tickets. If I lose my mind and try to shackle her to my side forever and ever, you get my office.”
Colin extended a hand, looking ridiculously excited. “Don’t forget—if you win, you get the tickets and your balls back.”
Yeah. There’s that.
“I still have no idea why you’re doing this. My office isn’t that great.”
Colin shrugged. “What can I say? I’m easily bored.”
No argument there. “So who’s the lucky lady?”
Colin held up a finger and chomped on the ice from his drink. “I’ve already got this figured out.” He pointed across the room.
Mitchell followed his gesture. “Grace Brighton? Isn’t she dating Greg?”
He felt a little surge of excitement. He’d never hit on a taken woman, but if Grace and Greg had broken up, that was another thing. He’d always liked Grace. She was lovely, refined.… Mitchell frowned. And not at all fling material. Maybe Colin was playing hardball—fixing him up with a woman who had the same long-term relationship goals as himself.
“No, not Grace, moron. Julie. In the pink dress.”
Mitchell’s gaze raked over the unfamiliar blonde. “Who is she?”
“Julie Greene? One of the Stiletto girls?”
“Stiletto? As in the shoe?”
“God, you need to get out more. Not the shoe. The magazine. Julie Greene, Grace Brighton, and Riley McKenna are practically the faces of the publication. The society pages call them Dating, Love, and Sex. Privately, I think of them as Kiss, Cuddle, and Fuck.”
Mitchell winced. “You’re disgusting.”
“True. But this girl is still perfect for our purposes. Julie lives for carefree dating. She’s got a different guy every other week. I know a couple of her exes, and neither has said a bad word about her other than that she kicked them to the curb after a few dates. No drama, no expectation of jewelry …”
Mitchell looked at her more closely. She was attractive in a predictable, manufactured sort of way. She looked like California chic had collided with East Coast reserve and gotten it all wrong. Her pink dress fell respectably to her knees, but clung just a touch too tightly in the hips to be subtle. And her hair was a mess of light brown and yellow streaks. He hated hair like that. Women should either stick with their natural color (which was probably mouse brown in Ms. Greene’s case) or dye it and embrace their bottle-blonde status. Those colored strips—what did women call them? Highlights—were just so damned obvious.
Julie threw back her head and laughed, not caring that several people turned and stared. Mitchell’s lips tightened with disapproval. No subtlety. Not his type at all.
Which meant there was no danger of him getting too involved.
He handed Colin his glass and adjusted his glasses slightly, resisting the urge to smile. The bet was too easy—and he could practically taste the beer at Yankee Stadium.
