Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  That evening, Cal picked up Min in his ancient Mercedes. She was sitting on the bottom step when he got there, dressed in a plain black dress that she’d pulled over her knees. She looked like a cranky nun.

  “What are you doing down here?” he said when he got out of the car.

  “You have to put up with my parents,” she said, standing up. “It didn’t seem fair to make you do those steps, too.”

  “I don’t mind climbing as long as you’re at the top.” Cal looked down at her feet. She was wearing plain black flats, no toes showing at all. “Why the awful shoes?”

  “They’re not awful,” Min said. “They’re classic. Like your car, which is very nice and yet somehow not what I’d pictured you in.”

  “Graduation present.” Cal opened the door for her. “Never look a gift car in the mouth. Get in, Minnie, we do not want to be late.”

  When he was in the driver’s seat, Min said, “For the MBA?”

  “What?” Cal said as he started the car.

  “The car. A graduation present for the MBA? I got a briefcase, so I’m trying to put things into perspective here.”

  “High school,” Cal said and pulled out into the street. “High school,” Min said, nodding. “What did they get you for the MBA? A yacht?”

  “A place in my dad’s firm.”

  “But—”

  “I declined the gift,” Cal said. “How’s Elvis?”

  “Really healthy,” Min said, sounding mystified. “I took him to the vet and he says he’s in great condition. Just weird.”

  “Like so much of my life lately,” Cal said. “Speaking of which, is there anything I should know about your family before I get there?”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Min said.

  “Minerva, I am going. Prep me for your parents, please.”

  “There’s nothing, really,” Min said. “My mother is always polite, and my father is not talkative unless you hit a nerve. Don’t hit a nerve.”

  “Right,” Cal said. “Could I have a list of nerves?”

  “Insurance fraud, younger men who want his job, music after 1970, and sex with his daughters.”

  “Sex with his daughters,” Cal said.

  Min nodded. “My father will assume you’re trying to debauch me.”

  “Your father is a keen judge of character,” Cal said. “How about your mother?”

  “Well, normally, she’d be scoping you out for son-in-law potential. There would be a quiz by dessert.”

  “Written or oral?”

  “Oral.”

  “Good. Oral I’m good at.” The silence stretched out until he said, “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  Min stared straight ahead. “Perfectly all right. There won’t be a quiz. My mother has other things on her mind at the moment.”

  “Does she have any other issues I should know about?”

  “Yes, but they’re all about me.”

  Cal shook his head. “I don’t care. Give me that list, too.”

  “Eating carbs, wearing white cotton underwear, not losing weight, failing to hold onto my ex-boyfriend whom she loved,” Min said. “I don’t think any of those are going to come up in your conversation with her.”

  “My mother likes my ex, too,” Cal said. “I think it’s laziness. She just doesn’t want to learn a new name. Who else is going to be there?”

  “My sister, Diana. You’re safe with her. She’s nuts right now because she’s getting married in a week, but she’s great just the same. If things get too awful, you can sit and look at Di. She’s beautiful.”

  “Good to know,” Cal said. “Mom, Dad, Diana, you, me. Cozy group.”

  “And Greg,” Min said, trying to keep her voice from going flat. “My sister’s fiancé.”

  “Right. Greg of the faulty memory. How’s that going?”

  “Something’s wrong,” Min said. “I don’t know what it is but he’s not helping. The thing is, he’s not a bad guy, except for dumping Wet which he had every right to do, and he adores Diana, so I can’t figure it out.” She looked over at Cal. “See what you think of him.”

  “Me?” Cal said, surprised.

  “You’re a good judge of character,” Min said. “Intuitive. Intuit Greg for me.”

  “The chances of me figuring out what’s wrong over dinner are slim,” Cal said as Min’s cell phone rang.

  When she pulled it out of her purse, he said, “A plain black cell phone. You lied to me that first night, Minnie.”

  “Which you knew,” Min said, and answered the phone. “Hello. What?” She listened for a minute and then said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” She listened again and said, “Di, it’s Saturday evening. I don’t know where . . . Wait a minute.” She turned to Cal. “Greg promised to get the wine for dinner.”

  “Let me guess,” Cal said.

  “You wouldn’t have a bottle or two at your apartment, would you?” Min said.

  “Emilio’s,” Cal said, and made a U-turn.

  Min turned back to the phone. “Cal’s going to fix it.” There was a note of pride in the way she said it, and Cal grinned. Then she turned off her phone and said, “You are a prince.”

  “Thank you,” Cal said. “Say something bitchy to me, will you? You’re confusing me.”

  He stopped and got the wine, and when he was back in the car, Min looked at the labels on the bottles. “These were expensive, weren’t they?”

  “Not really,” Cal said. “About forty bucks each.”

  Min started to laugh. “Serves Greg right, the dumbass.”

  Ten minutes later, Cal had followed Min’s directions and parked in front of a fairly large, fairly new house. Min said, “You know, you can still get out of this. Drop me off and I’ll tell—”

  “Nope.” Cal opened his car door. “Stay there.”

  “Stay where?” Min said, reaching for her door handle.

  Cal came around the car and caught the door for as she opened it. “You cannot leap out of cars without assistance.” He caught her hand and pulled her to her feet as she got out, and she ended up closer to him than he’d planned, which was fine by him. “It makes me look weak and powerless when you get out without me,” he said, watching the breeze ruffle her curls.

  “Yeah, weak and powerless,” she said. “I bet you get that a lot.” She detoured around him as he shut the car door, and he caught sight of someone vanishing from a window. “Well, the good news is, you just made points with my mother. She was scoping you out from the window.”

  “Great,” Cal said, taking her elbow. “Now all we have to do is survive dinner.”

  Min’s father met them in the hall, a lumbering man with a shock of blond hair and heavy white eyebrows who should have been hearty and welcoming but instead had the vaguely paranoid look of a sheepdog whose sheep were plotting against him.

  “Dad, this is Calvin Morrisey,” Min said. “Cal, this is my father, George Dobbs.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Calvin.” George’s gruff voice was firm as if to belie any indication that he wasn’t pleased, but his eyes telegraphed, What are you up to?

  “Pleased to be here, sir,” Cal lied, and Min patted him on the back, which was more comforting than he could have imagined.

  “You’re late,” George said to Min. “We’ve already had cocktails.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Cal said, and Min said, “No, you’re not. It was my fault, Dad, we had to go back for something.”

  “Well, come in now,” George said, and Min sighed and went into the dining room, and Cal followed and met Min’s dragon of a mother.

  The house was a showplace, clearly done by a decorator, and Min’s mother, standing in her perfect living room, matched it: Both were designer creations with no warmth whatsoever. The house at least had some color, but Min’s mother was small, thin, dark-haired, dressed in black, and groomed to within an inch of her life, the exact opposite of Min. “This is my mother, Nanette,” Min said, practically chirping. “Mother, this is Calvi