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There was so much irony in his words, and it was totally lost on him. “Yes, I’m very aware I’m doing it with Isla.” Or did. Once. I wasn’t sure where we stood now.
“Does she still hate your guts?” Michael clapped my shoulder. “Can’t say I blame her.”
He was joking, of course. We had spent our entire lives giving each other a hard time. But I had to admit it was hard to follow an older brother like Michael. As a kid, he’d been the star athlete, the best student, and heavily involved in charitable endeavors, even at sixteen. Now he was a surgeon and spent his free time fundraising for children’s charities. Yes, I had been a bit of a screw-off in school, not enjoying the rules of authority. My mother had claimed it was because I was a jerk, but mostly I thought it was because I’d always been creative. I liked to toss things in the air and see how they landed together.
It was important to me to be successful in this new position because I’d spent my whole adult life working toward this goal. I didn’t compare myself to my brother anymore, but I had a thing or two to prove to myself.
“Screw you.” I glanced around. “Give me a tour of this incredibly expensive wedding gift for your wife before I get started. I know Felicia’s been hard at work decorating it. Most guys just buy their wife a bottle of champagne on their honeymoon. Someone might say you’re overcompensating.”
Michael gave me a look. “What exactly do you know about marriage? If I gave Felicia a bottle of champagne as a wedding gift, and nothing more, she would wonder what kind of idiot she married since she was already pregnant and can’t drink.”
He had a point. “I know nothing about marriage. I just know I don’t see a massive brownstone in my future, but this is a pretty amazing house, I have to say.” It was a family home, no doubt about it.
Felicia was in the kitchen. S
he was tall, thin, and very elegant. She moved with the ease of a model, which she had been in her late teens. Her small baby bump was pronounced because she was so naturally thin and she was wearing a formfitting dress with heels. I gave her a hug. “You look fantastic,” I said, and I meant it.
“You are a terrible liar,” she said. “I feel very pale and sickly. It’s Victorian chic, I guess.”
“You do not look sickly. At all.” I waved my hand around. “By the way, the brownstone is beautiful. Have you house-trained my brother yet?” I didn’t even wait for her answer. I wanted a look around. This kitchen was a chef’s dream. High-end Wolf appliances. Eight burners on the stove. “I still can’t get over how amazing this kitchen is.”
“Sadly, you know it’s wasted on us,” Felicia said. “We are the king and queen of takeaway. But this will encourage us to entertain with caterers.”
I eyed her. “Wasting this kitchen is a sin. You two need to learn how to cook. You cannot feed my niece pad thai from the restaurant on the corner every night. She’ll be three years old with the sodium levels of a grown man.” I take vegetables seriously. We served a lot of meat at Bone, but I firmly believed in eating lots of greens alongside the fun stuff. “I can give you some cooking lessons.”
Felicia blanched. “Oh, hell. Please don’t. I’d rather scrub toilets than cook.”
That was an attitude I just couldn’t wrap my head around. “That’s insane.”
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get that,” Michael said.
“Is that Isla?” Instantly, I thought I sounded a little too eager.
“I think it’s the food delivery.”
Felicia gave me a sweet smile. “Isla’s already here somewhere. It’s so lovely of both of you to offer to do the food for our baby shower.”
Lovely wasn’t the right word. My brother would kill me if I didn’t. But I was also too proud to let my brother and sister-in-law hire an outside caterer. That was not going to happen. “We’re going to zone cook. Isla can do the apps and I’ll do a main dish.”
“Why don’t you do apps and I do the main course?” Isla asked, coming into the kitchen, her voice lifted in a challenge.
It should have annoyed me. Instead the sound of her voice turned me on. I liked how she stood up to me, said what she was thinking, held me accountable. The woman was the most amazing combination of sexy and exasperating. Her words made me want to grind my teeth, but when I turned around and took in the sight of her, there were a whole lot of other things I wanted to do with my mouth. She was wearing jeans that hugged every curve of her delicious body, and she had a black leather jacket on over a band T-shirt. But the best part was the black boots that had spiky high heels and came not to her knee, which would have been sexy enough, but over her knee, which was criminal.
“Nice shoes,” I said.
The memory of us together in her bed was burned into my brain, and when I thought about that hot, quick, sex and saw those boots, I wanted nothing more on the entire planet than to see her in just that T-shirt and the boots. While I took her hard against the nearest wall.
Something about my expression must have given my thoughts away because her eyes widened and her tongue peeked out to moisten her bottom lip.
“I’m a guest, not just the chef,” she said. “I needed party footwear.”
“I thought this was a baby shower, not a party.”
“Why are you fighting with me?” she asked. “This is a joyous occasion.” But she gave me a smile, like we had a private joke, which maybe we did.
Damn, I wanted her.
