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  Suppose for the next three weeks she made him pay by stringing him along and then took him to Di’s wedding. He wouldn’t leave her; he had to stick for a month to win his damn bet. All she had to do was say no to sex for three weeks, drag him to her sister’s wedding, and then leave his ass cold.

  Min settled back against the bar and examined the idea from all sides. He more than deserved to be tortured for three weeks. And in that three weeks she could figure out a way to make David suffer, too. And her mother would have somebody beautiful to point out to people at the wedding as her date. It was a plan, and as far as she could see, it was all good.

  The bartender came back and Min said, “Rum and Diet Coke, please. A double.”

  “That’s your third,” Liza said. “And fourth. The aspartame alone will make you insane. What are you doing?”

  “Was he mean to you?” Bonnie said. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t talk to him.” Min waved them away. “Move down the bar a couple of feet, will you? I’m about to get hit on and you’re cramping my style.”

  “We missed something,” Liza said to Bonnie.

  “Move,” Bonnie said, and pushed Liza down the bar.

  Min turned away when the bartender brought her drink, so when The Beast spoke from beside her, she jerked her head up and caught the full force of him unprepared: hot dark eyes, perfect cheekbones, and a mouth a woman would betray her moral fiber to bite into. Her heart kicked up into her throat, and she swallowed hard to get it back where it belonged.

  “I have a problem,” he said, and his voice was low and smooth, warm enough to be charming, rich enough to clog arteries.

  Dark chocolate, Min thought and looked at him blankly, keeping her breathing slow. “Problem?”

  “Well, usually my line is ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ but you have one.” He smiled at her, radiating testosterone through his expensive suit.

  “Well, that is a problem.” She started to turn away.

  “So what I thought,” he said, his voice dropping even lower as he leaned closer to her and made her heart pound, “was that we could go somewhere else, and I could buy you dinner.”

  The closer he got, the better he looked. He was the used car salesman of seducers, Min decided, trying to get her distance back. You could never get a good deal from a used car salesman; they sold cars all the time and you only bought a couple in a lifetime so they always won. Statistically speaking, you were toast before you walked on the lot. She could only imagine how many women this guy had mutilated in his lifetime. The mind boggled.

  His smile had disappeared while he waited for her answer, and he looked vulnerable now, taking a chance on asking her out. He faked vulnerable very well. Remember, she told herself, the son of a bitch is doing this for ten bucks. Actually, he was trying to do her for ten bucks. Cheapskate. Suddenly, breathing normally was not a problem.

  “Dinner?” she said.

  “Yes.” He bent still closer. “Somewhere quiet where we can talk. You look like someone with interesting things to say. And I’m somebody who’d like to hear them.”

  Min smiled at him. “That’s a terrible line. Does it usually work for you?”

  He froze for a second, and then he segued from sincere to boyish again. “Well, it has up till now.”

  “It must be your voice,” Min said. “You deliver it beautifully.”

  “Thank you.” He straightened. “Let’s try this again.” He held out his hand. “I’m Calvin Morrisey, but my friends call me Cal.”

  “Min Dobbs.” She shook his hand and dropped it before it could feel warm in her grasp. “And my friends would call me foolhardy if I left this bar with a stranger.”

  “Wait.” He got out his wallet and pulled out a twenty. “This is cab fare. If I get fresh, you get a cab.”

  Liza would take the twenty and then dump him. There was a plan, but Liza didn’t need a wedding date. What else would Liza do? Min plucked the twenty from his fingers. “If you get fresh, I’ll break your nose.” She folded the twenty, unbuttoned her top two blouse buttons, and tucked the bill into the V of her sensible cotton bra so that only a thin green edge showed. That was one good thing about packing extra pounds, you got cleavage to burn.

  She looked up and caught his eyes looking down, and she waited for him to make some comment, but he smiled again. “Fair enough,” he said, “let’s go eat,” and she reminded herself to ignore what a beautiful mouth he had since it was full of forked tongue.

  “First, promise me no more lame lines,” she said, and watched his jaw clench.

  “Anything you want,” he said.

  Min shook her head. “Another line. I suppose you can’t help it. And free food is always good.” She picked up her purse from the bar. “Let’s go.”

  She walked away before he could say anything else, and he followed her, past a dumbfounded Liza and a delighted Bonnie, across the floor and up onto the landing by the door, and the last thing she saw as they left was David looking outraged.

  The evening was turning out much better than she’d expected.

  Chapter Two

  Liza scowled at the empty doorway. This was not good. When Calvin Morrisey came back in and spoke to David for a moment, it didn’t get better.

  “Do you suppose it was the booze?” Bonnie asked.

  Liza thought fast. “I don’t know what it was, but I don’t like it. Why was he hitting on her?”

  Bonnie frowned. “It’s not like you to be jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous.” Liza transferred her scowl to Bonnie. “Think about it. Min sends out no signals, he’s never talked to her so he can’t know how great she is, and she’s dressed like a nun with an MBA. But he crosses a crowded bar to pick her up—”

  “It’s possible,” Bonnie said.

  “—right after he’s talked to David,” Liza finished, nodding to the landing where a red-faced David was now moving in on the brunette.

  “Oh.” Bonnie looked stricken. “Oh, no.”

  “There’s only one thing we can do.” Liza squared her shoulders. “We’ve got to find out what Calvin the Beast is up to.”

  “How—”

  Liza nodded at the mezzanine. “He was with those two guys. Which one do you want, the big dumb-looking blond or the bullet head?”

  Bonnie followed her eyes to the landing and sighed. “The blond. He looks harmless. The bullet head looks like all hands, and I’m not up to that tonight.”

  “Well, I am.” Liza put her drink on the bar and leaned back. The bullet head was looking right at her. “The last time I saw a brow that low I was watching slides in anthropology class.” She met his stare dead on for a full five seconds. Then she turned back to the bar. “Two minutes.”

  “It’s a crowded room, Lize,” Bonnie said. “Give him three.”

  David had watched Cal open the street door for Min and felt a flare of jealous rage. It wasn’t that he wanted to kick Cal. He always wanted to kick Cal. The guy never broke a sweat, never made a bad business move, never lost a bet, and never hit on a woman and missed. Your therapist warned you about this, he told himself, but he knew it wasn’t just his need to be first in everything. This time the jealousy had an extra twist.

  This time Cal had taken Min. Min who was good, solid wife material except for that stubborn streak which he could have worn down, she’d have come back eventually. But now—

  He stiffened as Cal came back through the door and motioned him over.

  “We’re going to dinner,” Cal said, holding out his hand. “Ten bucks.”

  He sounded mad, which made David feel better as he took out his wallet and handed Cal the ten.

  “Smart move not tipping me that she hates men,” Cal said.

  Then he was gone, and David went back to the railing and said, “I think I just made a mistake.”

  “You, too?” Cynthie said, her voice sad over her martini glass.

  David glanced at the door. “So it wasn’t your idea to break up with Cal?”