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Alyssa raised her eyebrows. “Why’s that? Don’t you normally bother?”
He looked in through the sliding glass doors that led from the balcony where they were sitting, to the kitchen where their parents were standing. “No, but only because … I don’t do that very often.”
Alyssa followed his gaze before turning back to him. “Oh! I didn’t even think. I bet your mom would be about as impressed as my dad if they knew that we were the kind of people who …”
Two little lines appeared between his brows, and Bentley tapped her foot with his own. It was ridiculous, but she was already starting to love the way he did that.
“But we’re not, are we? Neither of us is the kind of person who usually does what we did last night.”
She shrugged. He had a point. “Well, you know that I never have before, and you already told me that it’s not a regular thing for you.” She smiled, happy to leave that part of the conversation behind. For some reason, it bothered her to think about Bentley going out and picking up other women the way he’d done with her. “And what are the odds? I never would have guessed that Lee, the hot guy at the resort, would turn out to be Bentley, Ria’s son, whom I expected to be intimidating, not to mention a little snooty, and probably boring.”
She had to laugh at the expression on his face. “Jeez! I’m joking.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m glad to hear it. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell me you weren’t joking about the hot guy part?”
She brought her hand up to her mouth to cover her embarrassment and her laughter. There was no point trying to hide it, though. And given the happy smile on his face, she didn’t want to.
“Come on, Bentley. You know it, you don’t need to go fishing for compliments.”
He shrugged. “I’m not into false modesty; I wasn’t seeking flattery. I just like hearing thatyousee me that way.”
His eyes told her that he wasn’t joking. And that just sent a shiver down her spine. She shrugged, needing to move past the moment; they could hardly pursue this line of conversation with their parents just a few feet away.
“I do.”
“And I wasn’t joking when I said you’re gorgeous,” he said quickly.
Her dad and Ria were making their way outside.
“How would you feel if I came up with a way to get us out of here?”
She nodded at him eagerly.
His eyes shone when he smiled at her. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I won’t say a word if you’d rather stick around and spend the evening with them, though; you tell me.”
“I feel like we should probably do that,” she said. “But I don’t want to.”
“How are you guys doing out here?” her dad asked.
“We’re good, thanks.” Alyssa wanted to slap her hand over her mouth. She shouldn’t have answered for both of them, and she knew it. Luckily, neither her dad nor Ria seemed surprised by it.
“How would you feel about having dinner over at the Lodge at Four Mile?” asked Ria. “We could call and make a reservation.”
Alyssa kept her mouth shut and waited to see what Bentley might have to say. She was surprised to see him get to his feet and go and wrap an arm around his mom’s shoulders.
“We were just talking about that. I was picking Alyssa’s brain about the audit idea you came up with earlier.”
Alyssa’s heart started to pound. He probably should’ve thought of a better excuse than that. If he said that they were going to talk about it, then their parents would no doubt want to know what ideas they’d come up with.
Bentley smiled at Russ. “I was thinking that we could discuss it further over dinner. There won’t be much time before we both have to leave tomorrow. And I’m sure that you guys wouldn’t mind having the evening to yourselves.”
Alyssa was surprised to see that her dad looked happy with the idea. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she felt bad, knowing that he was only checking if she was okay. Then it dawned on her, he was thinking that this might somehow help her career. She almost spoke up and said that she’d rather have dinner with them just so that she wouldn’t be fooling him like this. But she didn’t speak up. She might feel bad, but not bad enough to pass up the chance for another night with Bentley.
When she smiled back at him, her dad said, “Well, if that’s what you guys want to do …” He turned to Ria, and Alyssa was relieved to see that she was smiling.
