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“If you win,” I say, “I’ll do you one better. I’ll sleep with you.”
Eric takes two strides into my space with his arm out to shake my hand. “Deal.”
“Hold on cowboy. If I win this bet, you’ll become the rhea bird and take up residence in this nestuntil the eggs hatch.”
His arm drops and he slowly backs away again.
5
ERIC
AmI really one hundred percent certain that I can out math Catherine? Given what I’ve seen her calculate in her head, I place my odds of winning this bet—whatever it is—at fifty-fifty.
If I lose, that will be some serious public humiliation, at least with the brothers who will no doubt find out how I landed inNestrogen.
But if I win … I am positive I can turn a one-night stand with Catherine into something a little longer. Maybe even something that will break her supposed curse with men.
“How many days does the male rhea nest? Three or four?”
Catherine shakes her head and points her thumb upward.
“A week?”
She repeats the movements.
“Two weeks?” Anxiety surges in my chest.
“Because the rhea nests with eggs from multiple breeding partners over a few weeks, and once the first egg hatches they all start, twenty-nine to forty—”
“Twenty-nine days? A month? If I lose, I have to stay in this nest for a month?”
Catherine’s glee is one part cute, twenty-eight parts annoying as hell.
“Twenty-nine is the lower limit. Forty-three is the maximum. So, four to six weeks. To be negotiated, of course.”
“No way,” I say.
“You don’t even know what the bet is. And two minutes ago, you said you were one hundred percent certain that you could out math me. Put your arrogance—I mean confidence—where your mouth is.”
I love her moxie. Never have I met a woman who’s as comfortable to show up as herself, on good days and bad days, in yoga pants and rock band T-shirts. The idea of spending a freaking month living in a nest in the lobby of the Will Power & Brothers building is appalling. But the thought of extending my time with Catherine pulls me to ask, “Have you already schemed what we’re betting on?”
Her smile fills her face and her eyes twinkle.
“I have. If you’d like to knowbeforeyou agree to the challenge, and you take the bet and lose, you’ll be a good rhea daddy for the full incubation time of forty-three days.”
I consider. “So, if I go in blind and lose, which I won’t, I spend twenty-nine days in the nest. But if you tell me what we’re betting on and I don’t like it, I don’t have to take the bet. If I do take it then lose, which I won’t, I have to spend the full forty-three days in the nest.”
“Exactly,” she says.
“I can live with that. With one change. If take this bet and win, I want the same twenty-nine or forty-three days working in my favor.”
Catherine is practically dancing in place. Her smile is infectious.
I laugh. “If I win the bet, you agree to be my lover for six weeks. Every night for the month-and-a-half that I would have been in your nest, you’ll spend in mine.”
She bites her bottom lip and nods, thinking. “Oh, you’re good. So, do you want to know what the bet is or not?”
“Give it to me.”
