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“I’m not intentionally distracting you, I just don’t see what there is to discuss at this point. Let’s enjoy dinner. And each other.”
I want to do exactly that. It sounds like a perfect offer.
But Kayley was downright pissed at Chase’s office and not real thrilled at the property earlier. This sudden shift in mood feels a little…drastic.
Trying to figure out my best course of action, I glance around the restaurant and search for something witty to say. Seduction is not my strong suit, however. That’s my brother, Elliot’s, arena, having spent years researching and developing his dating app.
I’ve never been the guy who enjoys the chase. When I meet a woman that I like, I prefer to make my affection known, see if she feels the same way, then settle in for a minute. Or a year or five. I also don’t usually mix business with pleasure or rip a woman’s clothes off an hour after I meet her.
But that’s exactly what I did with Kayley. I’m on unstable ground here with her. As shaky as Shinglepuss’s shack.
I absolutely need to clear the air about the property before we retreat to a room upstairs and find new ways to make each other come.
“Can I at least present to you my perspective?” I ask. “Without either of us hurling snow or insults?”
Her eyebrow arches. “You want to give me a sales pitch as to why I should surrender my dream in lieu of yours?”
Damn. That sounds harsh. And makes her feelings very clear.
“You make it sound so one-sided.” I hadn’t planned to have a drink, but I find myself raising my hand for the server. “I’ll take a dirty martini with gin, extra dirty, thank you.”
“I didn’t picture you as a martini man,” Kayley muses. “I can usually guess someone’s drink choice on the first or second try. It’s one of the benefits of working in hospitality all these years.”
“What did you expect me to order?”
“At first, in the wolf costume with all that luscious hair—
“Stop it with the hair,” I groan. “I’m begging you.”
Kayley grins. “Anyway, with all that luscious long hair and your furry fingers, I was envisioning a mead or a stout. Something hearty. Then when you were in tweed, I refined it to a porter. Possibly a bourbon. Never a dirty martini. So very James Bond of you.”
“I think James Bond drinks a clean martini, but I could be wrong. You’ve given more thought to my drink choice than I ever have.” I sit back in my chair, more curious about Kayley than ever. “I like martinis because I like olives. It’s not making any statement other than that.”
“Every cocktail makes a statement. I love having signature drinks at all of my events. It sets the tone for a party.”
Kayley definitely seems like she would be the life of the party. Even in the promised tweed miniskirt, she looks more like a pop star than a resort owner. The skirt is actually pink—I didn’t even know tweed existed in pink—and the turtleneck sweater she’s paired with it is beige, but skintight, displaying all her curves to full advantage.
“Your brother is a bourbon drinker,” she adds, “as I’m sure you know.”
“How well do you know my brother?” And why does it make me feel absurdly jealous that Kayley knows his drink choice, even though Elliot is in love with Nancy and they’re expecting a baby?
“Oh, not that well, really, but I was there at the New Year’s Eve party where he proposed to Nancy. And when they got pregnant.”
I’m assuming she doesn’t realize how that sounds. “Uh…therethere?”
Kayley laughs. “No! Notactuallythere. I just meant that I was hosting the party at my resort and may have had something to do with them winding up in a room with only one bed.”
This is why I shouldn’t trust her flirty casualness tonight after her anger earlier.
Kayley has a devious side.
“Why would you do that?” I ask.
“Because it was obvious Nancy was in love with Elliot. I was just giving them a little push.”
“Or meddling in the lives of adults.” I’ve found what is possibly her one and only flaw. She’s a matchmaker. Just like the nosy grandmothers in my building back in NYC, the ones who have arranged “accidental” meetings with their granddaughters in the elevator more times than I can count.
But on the plus side, it means she believes in love and in marriage.
