Bet Me Read online

  “Yes, he did,” Min said, enjoying herself. “He brought the paperweight because we were going to honeymoon in Paris.”

  “Thoughtful of him,” Cal said, biting off the words.

  “Not really.” Min straightened. “I don’t want to honeymoon in Paris.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “No,” Min said, her patience at an end. “I told him I didn’t want to get married, and then I kicked him out.”

  “Uh huh,” Cal said.

  “That’s it,” Min said. “He’s gone.”

  “No, he’s not,” Cal said.

  “I assure you—”

  “He left his tie, Min.”

  “So?”

  “So he left it so he could come back for it.”

  “That’s . . .” Min thought about it. “. . . entirely possible.”

  “Give me the tie,” Cal said.

  “Why?” Min said, exasperated.

  “So I can messenger it back to the son of a bitch tomorrow,” Cal said. “Who is he?”

  “Have you lost your only mind?”

  Cal closed his eyes. “Yes.”

  “There we go,” Min said. “The first step in solving your problem is admitting you have one.”

  “Don’t see him anymore,” Cal said, making it a request, not an order.

  “I won’t,” Min said. “I don’t even like him much.”

  “Can I return the tie, please?” Cal said, holding out his hand.

  Min fished it out of the trash. “Here. His name is David Fisk. He runs a soft—” She stopped at the look on Cal’s face. “What?”

  “Your ex is David Fisk?” Cal said, and Min remembered the bet.

  “Yes,” she said. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes,” Cal said. “He’s —” He stopped and she waited. “He’s a client.”

  “Oh,” Min said, and thought, The bet, he’s not going to tell me about the bet. Damn it.

  Cal crumpled up the tie. “I’ll send it back to him. How’s the chicken?”

  “I think it’s excellent,” Min said, feeling depressed as Elvis sang about true love.

  “It looks great.” Cal picked up a spoon from the dish drainer and scooped up some sauce. He tasted it and Min waited, caring way too much about what he thought. “Damn, that’s good,” he said, looking at her with surprise. “I think that’s better than Emilio’s. Did you do something different?”

  “Yes,” Min said. “But that’s my secret. You have secrets, I have secrets.”

  “I don’t have secrets,” Cal said.

  “Dinner,” Min said and went to set the table as “Love Me Tender” began again.

  They talked through dinner and the dishes, and Min tried not to enjoy it, tried to remember the bet, but it was so comfortable being with him that she kept forgetting. Somehow he’d slipped into her life and under her skin, and she was happy about that even though she knew that was his plan. I don’t have a plan, she thought, and that was so good that she gave up and smiled at him and when he left, she kissed him good night without reservation, and he leaned in the doorway and said, “Minnie, about this friends thing,” and she pushed him out gently and closed the door to keep from saying, “I hate that, forget that, make love to me.”

  Because that, she told herself as she went back to Elvis, would be bad.

  At seven Wednesday night, David was in his shirtsleeves, trying to find two shipments that had gone astray and thinking about how to get to Min, who’d once brought him a Caesar salad (no croutons), when his office door banged open and Cynthie stood there in another tailored suit, this one pink.

  “Oh good, it’s you,” he said flatly.

  “They’re still dating.” Cynthie came in and closed the door. “You were supposed to make your move.”

  “I did,” David said. “She said no. And I left the tie but Cal messengered it back to me, so that didn’t work. But she also said she wasn’t going to sleep with him, so I’m thinking if we wait—”

  “Well, wait for this. He took her home to meet his mother.”

  David sat up straighter as the cold hit his spine. “What?”

  “He took her home to meet his mother,” Cynthie said again. “It took me seven months to get Cal to take me home to his parents. She did it in three weeks. David, I’m losing him.”

  “His mother,” David said, and thought, The bastard. He’ll do anything to win that bet. “Fuck.” He looked up, startled that he’d said it out loud. “Sorry.”

  “No,” Cynthie said, stopping in front of him. “You are not sorry. You are mad.”

  “Yeah, I am.” David thought about Cal Morrisey and got madder. Somebody should stop guys like him. He stood up. “So what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Fight for her,” Cynthie said. “She’s your girlfriend. Get her back.”

  “I tried,” David said, losing some steam. “She likes Cal.”

  “You are the most passive son of a bitch,” Cynthie said. “No wonder she never slept with you. You probably never asked her.”

  “Thank you,” David said. “That’s great coming from somebody who got turned down after putting out for nine months. Don’t see that being aggressive worked for you, sweetheart. Maybe you’re the one with the heat problem.”

  “Listen, you,” Cynthie said. “I have a perfect body and I am great in bed.”

  “You know, I doubt it,” David said, coming around his desk. “Don’t bother to open your jacket again. I already saw that commercial.”

  Cynthie gaped at him. “You bastard.”

  “Well, hell, Cynthie, what do you expect? You come in here screaming at me and calling me names because your ex took the woman I love home to meet his mother. If you want to stop it, go get him. Unbutton your jacket at him.” David stopped and closed his eyes. “Look, I’m tired, I’m miserable, and I haven’t had sex in three months. Take your perfect body back to the guy who was having perfect sex with you. I have work to do.”

  When she didn’t say anything, he opened his eyes. She was frowning at him.

  “They’re not sleeping together,” Cynthie said.

  “I know,” David said. “So nobody’s getting any. Great. Go away.”

  “You can tell by the way they act together,” she said, and he stopped. “I was just at The Long Shot. Min was there with Cal. I watched them. They haven’t done it. You can tell, people touch differently when they’ve had sex, they relax, they . . .” Cynthie took a step closer. “They haven’t done it. We can still get them back. And I know a great aphrodisiac.”

  “Right,” David said. “You unbutton your jacket.”

  “No,” Cynthie said, so close now she was almost touching him. “Pain. If joy doesn’t work, try pain. Like jealousy. It’s a physiological cue, a very powerful one. They’re going to Emilio’s now, I heard them say so. We’re going to go.”

  David stepped back and bumped into his desk. “Cynthie, I don’t—”

  “But first,” Cynthie said. “We’re going to have sex.”

  David froze.

  “It’s been three months for me, too,” Cynthie said. “So we are going to have incredible, athletic, sweaty sex right here, and then we’re going to go to dinner. And Cal will know. People look different when they’ve just had sex.”

  David swallowed. “Well, thank you, but I don’t think it’s going to—”

  Cynthie unbuttoned her jacket, revealing a shiny pink bra that was so sheer it was probably illegal in several states.

  “—accomplish anything beyond making us both feel foolish—”

  She dropped her jacket to the floor and unzipped her skirt.

  “—after the shallow physical thrill—”

  Her skirt slid down her remarkable legs, and David was left looking at the most perfect body he’d ever seen in the flesh.

  “—subsides,” he finished lamely.

  She walked up to him. “You’re not going to say no to me.”

  “I guess not,” David said and let her drag him