Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  “Nope,” Emilio said. “I saw the way you looked at each other.”

  “That was fear and loathing,” Cal said, opening the door.

  “God, you’re dumb,” Emilio said, and Cal ignored him and went out into the dark to find Min.

  Chapter Three

  “Infatuation is the fun part of falling in love,” Cynthie said to David when they were ensconced in Serafino’s and the waiter had brought their very expensive filets and departed.

  David smiled at her and thought, I bet Min isn’t talking psychology with Cal. God knew what Min was doing with Cal. Whatever it was, he was going to have to find a way to stop it.

  “Infatuation triggers a chemical in the brain called PEA,” Cynthie said. “Your heart races, and you get breathless and dizzy, you tremble, and you can’t think. It’s what most people think of when they think of falling in love, and everybody goes through it.” She smiled a lovely, faraway smile. “Our infatuation was wonderful. We couldn’t resist each other.”

  “Hmm.” David picked up his blue-frosted margarita glass. “Tell me again how it’s not working out for them.”

  “Well,” Cynthie said, “about now, he should be realizing it’s time to cut his losses. He’ll take her to her car to make sure she’s safe, and then he’ll shake her hand and say, ‘Have a nice life,’ and that’ll be it.”

  “What if he was attracted to her?”

  “I told you, he wasn’t,” Cynthie said, but her smile faded. “But if he was, which he wasn’t, then he’d ask her out again and look for more cues, more evidence that she’s somebody he should love. Like whether his family and friends like her. But she’s not Roger’s type, he likes giggly little blondes, and I doubt Tony even saw her since he’s pretty much a breast-butt-legs man, so it wasn’t his friends who prompted him to pick her up.”

  “Hard to tell what made him do that,” David said, trying to sound innocent.

  “And she’s not going to meet his family, but even if she did, his mother would hate her, his mother disapproves of everything, so that wouldn’t be a cue, since Cal needs his family to approve of him.”

  “So you’re saying that’s all it would take for them to reject each other?” David said. “Friends and family disapproving?”

  “Unless she doesn’t like her family or wants to rebel against them. Then their disapproval would push her into his arms, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.”

  “No,” David said, thinking of two dinners with Min’s parents in the past two months. “They’re very close.”

  “Then family and friends are very powerful,” Cynthie said. “Which is why I’ve been nice to Tony for nine months. But, David, it’s not going to happen. Cal is in the mature love and attachment stage with me, which means he won’t be attracted to Min.”

  “Mature love. That would be the, uh, fourth stage,” David said, trying to show he’d been listening.

  “Right,” Cynthie said. “Infatuation doesn’t last because it’s conditional and conditions change, but if it’s real love, it turns into mature, unconditional love, and new chemicals are released in the brain, endorphins that make you feel warm and peaceful and satisfied and content whenever you’re with the one you love.” She took a deep breath. “And miserable when you’re without him because if he’s not there, the brain won’t produce the chemicals.”

  “Oh,” David said, understanding now. “So you’re going through endorphin withdrawal.”

  “Temporarily,” Cynthie said, her chin up. “He’ll be back. He’s going without sex, which is pain, a physiological cue to deepen his attachment to me.”

  “Pain,” David said, thinking anything that hurt Cal was a good idea.

  Cynthie nodded. “In order to move from infatuation to attachment, Cal will have to feel joy or pain when he’s with Min. The joy could be great conversation or great sex, the pain could be jealousy, frustration, fear, almost anything that adds stress. The pain cue is the reason there are so many wartime romances. And office romances.”

  “Right,” David said, remembering an intern from his earlier years.

  “But I don’t think that’s going to happen tonight. I think he’s going to be bored. I must say that it’s a great comfort to know that your Min is dull and frigid.”

  “I didn’t say she was dull and frigid,” David said. “I wouldn’t date somebody who was dull and frigid.”

  “Then you should have stuck it out,” Cynthie said. “Infatuation lasts anywhere from six months to three years, and you can’t know you’ve found the right person until you’ve worked your way through it. You quit at two months so you couldn’t have reached attachment and neither could she.” She shrugged. “Mistake.”

  “Six months to three years?” David said. “And you pushed Cal after nine months?” He shrugged. “Mistake.”

  Cynthie put down her fork. “Not a mistake. I know Cal, I have written articles on Cal, and he is in the attachment stage, we both are.”

  David stopped eating, appalled. “You wrote about your lover?”

  “Well, I didn’t call him by his real name,” Cynthie said. “And I didn’t say he was my lover.”

  “Isn’t that unethical?”

  “No.” Cynthie pushed her plate away, most of her dinner untouched. “That’s how we met. I’d heard about him through a couple of my clients. He had quite a reputation.”

  “I know,” David said, thinking vicious thoughts about Cal Morrisey, God’s Gift to Women. “Totally undeserved.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cynthie said. “I was studying him, and he got me.” Her mouth curved again. “Nature gave him that face and body, and his parents gave him conditional affection as a child. He’s been trained to please people to get approval, and the people he likes to please most are women, who are more than willing to be pleased by him because he looks the way he does. So his looks guarantee assumption and his charm guarantees attraction. He’s one of the most elegant adaptive solutions I’ve ever observed. The papers I wrote on him got a lot of attention.”

  David tried to picture Cal Morrisey as a child, trying to earn affection. All he could come up with was a good-looking dark-haired kid in a tuxedo, leaning on a swing set and smiling confidently at little girls. “Did he know you wrote papers on him?”

  “No,” Cynthie said. “He still doesn’t. He never will. I finished that work, it’s over. I’m writing a book now, already under contract. It’s almost done.” She smiled, a satisfied feline smile. “The point is, I’m not some silly woman moaning, ‘But I thought he loved me,’ I have clinical proof he does love me. And he’ll come back to me soon, as long as your Min doesn’t distract him.”

  “So,” David said, leaning closer. “If we wanted to make sure they didn’t get to—what was it? Attraction?—what would we do?”

  Cynthie’s eyes widened. “Do?” She put her wineglass down and thought about it. “Well, I suppose we could talk to their friends and families, poison the well, so to speak. And we could offer them joy in different forms to counteract whatever happens between them. But that wouldn’t be . . . David, we don’t have to do anything. Cal loves me.”

  “Right,” David said, sitting back. Family, he thought. I have an in with the family.

  Cynthie smiled at him. “I’m tired of talking about them,” she said. “What is it that you do for a living?”

  David thought, It’s about time we got to me. He said, “I’m in software development,” and watched her eyes glaze over.

  Outside Emilio’s, Min took a deep breath of summer night air and thought, I’m happy. Evidently great food was an antidote to rage and humiliation. Good to know for the future.

  Then Cal came out and said, “Where’s your car?” and broke her mood.

  “No car,” Min said. “I can walk it.” She held out her hand. “Thank you for a lovely evening. Sort of. Good-bye.”

  “No,” Cal said, ignoring her hand. “Which way is your place?”

  “Look,” Min said, exasperated. “I can