Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  “So go get her,” Cal said, trying to get around him.

  “Cynthie’s got David with her,” Roger said, and there was great sympathy in his voice.

  “Cal!” David’s voice grated over Cal’s shoulder. “Just who we were looking for.” He sounded mad as hell, but when Cal turned, David was smiling.

  Trouble, Cal thought and smiled back with equal insincerity. “David. Cynthie. Great to see you.”

  “Hello, Cal.” Cynthie smiled up at him, her heart-shaped face lethally lovely. “How’ve you been?”

  “Great. Couldn’t be better. You, too, looking great.” Cal looked past her to David, and thought, Take her, please. “You’re a lucky man, David.”

  “I am?”

  “Dating Cynthie,” Cal said, putting all the encouragement he could into his voice.

  Cynthie took David’s arm. “We just ran into each other.” She turned her shoulder to Cal and glowed up at David. “But it is nice seeing him again.” Her eyes slid back to Cal’s face, and he smiled past her ear again, radiating no jealousy at all as hard as he could.

  David looked down into her beautiful face and blinked, and Cal felt a stab of sympathy for him. Cynthie was enchanting up close. And from far away. From everywhere, really, which was how he’d ended up saying yes to her all the time. Cal glanced at her impeccably tight little body in her impeccably tight little red dress and then took a step back as he jerked his eyes away, reminding himself of how peaceful life was without her. Distance, that was the key. Maybe a cross and some garlic, too.

  “Of course,” David was saying. “Maybe we can do dinner later.” He glanced at Cal, looking triumphant.

  “Well, don’t let us keep you.” Cal took another step back and bumped into the railing.

  Cynthie let go of David’s arm, her glow diminished. “I’ll just freshen up before we go.” Tony and David watched as her perfect rear end swung away from them, while Roger ignored her to peer across the room at the pixie blonde, and Cal took another healthy swallow of his drink and wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere else. Dinner, for example. Maybe he’d stop by Emilio’s and eat in the kitchen. There were no women in Emilio’s kitchen.

  “So, David,” Tony was saying. “How’d our seminar work out for you?”

  “It was terrific,” David said. “I didn’t think anybody could teach some of those morons that new program, but everybody at the firm is now up to speed. We’ve even . . .”

  He went on and Cal nodded, thinking that one of the many reasons he didn’t like David was his tendency to refer to his employees as morons. Still, David paid his bills on time and gave credit where it was due; there were much worse clients. And if he took over Cynthie, Cal was prepared to feel downright warm toward him.

  David wound down on whatever it was he’d been saying and looked toward the stairs. “About Cynthie. I thought that you and she—”

  “No.” Cal shook his head with enthusiasm. “She left me a couple of months ago.”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

  David arched an eyebrow and looked ridiculous. And still women went out with him. Life was a mystery. So were women.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be the guy who never strikes out?” David said.

  “No,” Cal said.

  “He’s losing his edge,” Tony said. “I found an easy pickup for him, and he said no.”

  “Which one?” David said.

  “The gray-checked suit at the bar.” Tony motioned with his glass, and David looked at the bar and then turned back to Cal, smooth as ever.

  “Maybe you are losing it.” David smiled at him. “She shouldn’t be that hard to get. It’s not like she’s a Cynthie.”

  “She’s all right,” Cal said, cautiously.

  David leaned in. “After all, nobody says no to you, right?”

  “What?” Cal said.

  “I’m willing to bet you that you can’t get her,” David said. “A hundred bucks says you can’t nail her.”

  Cal pulled back. “What?”

  David laughed, but there was an edge to his voice when he spoke. “It’s just a bet, Cal. You guys love risk, I’ve seen you bet on damn near everything. This isn’t even that big a bet. We should make it two hundred.”

  That was when Cal had contemplated giving David a healthy push. Tony turned his back to David and mouthed, Humor him, and Cal sighed. There must be something he could ask for that would make David back down. “That baseball in your office,” he said. “The one in the case.”

  “My Pete Rose baseball?” David’s voice went up an octave.

  “Yeah, that one. That’s my price.” Cal slugged back the rest of his scotch and looked around for a waitress.

  David shook his head. “Not a chance. My dad caught that pop-up for me in seventy-five. But I like your style, upping the stakes like that.” He leaned in closer. “Tell you what. The last refresher seminar you ran for us set me back ten grand. I’ll bet you ten thousand in cash against a free seminar—”

  Cal forced a smile. “David, I was kidding—”

  “But for ten thou, you have to get her into bed. I’ll play fair. I’ll give you a month to get her out of that gray-checked suit.”

  “Piece of cake,” Tony said.

  Cal glared at Tony. “David, this isn’t my kind of bet.”

  “It’s my kind,” David said, drawing his brows together, and Cal thought, Hell, he’s going to push this, and we need his business.

  Okay, clearly booze had shut down David’s brain. But once it was back up and working again, David would back down on the ten thousand, that was insane, and David was never insane about money. So all he had to do was stall until David sobered up and then pretend the whole thing never happened. He stole a glance across the room to the bar and was delighted to see that the gray suit had disappeared sometime during their conversation.

  Cal turned back to David and said, “Well, I would, David, but she’s gone.” And God bless you, gray suit, for leaving, he thought and picked up his drink again.

  Things were finally going his way.

  Min had walked across the room, telling herself that it was a real toss-up as to which would be worse, trying to talk to this guy or enduring Di’s wedding unescorted. When she neared the landing, she edged her way under the rail, catching faint snatches of conversations as she went, not stopping until she heard David’s voice faintly above her, saying, “But for ten, though, you have to get her into bed.”

  What? Min thought. It was noisy up there by the door, maybe she hadn’t heard him—

  “I’ll play fair,” David went on. “I’ll give you a month to get her out of that gray-checked suit.”

  Min looked down at her gray-checked suit.

  “Piece of cake,” somebody said to David, and Min thought, Son of a bitch, the world is full of sex-crazed bastards, and forced herself to move on before she climbed the railing and killed them both.

  She headed back to Liza and Bonnie, fuming. She knew exactly what David was up to. He assumed she wouldn’t sleep with anybody because she’d turned him down. She’d warned him about that, about the rash assumptions he made, but instead of taking her advice, he’d kept asking her out.

  Because he thought I was a sure thing, she realized. Because he’d looked at her and thought, Overweight smart woman who’ll never cheat on me and will be grateful I sleep with her. “Bastard,” she said out loud. She should have sex with Calvin Morrisey just to pay David back. But then she’d have no way of getting even with Calvin Morrisey. God, she was dumb. Fat and dumb, there was a winning combo.

  “What’s wrong?” Liza said when she was back at the bar. “Did you ask him?”

  “No. As soon as you finish your drinks, I’m ready to go.” Min turned back to the balcony and caught sight of them, just as they caught sight of her.

  David’s face was smug, but Calvin Morrisey clutched his drink and looked like he’d just seen Death.

  “There she is,” David crowed. “I told you