wasn’t a short conversation they were having. And Sebastian wasn’t as perfunctory and dismissive as he was at work.
I hate it when you cry, he’d said.
The Sebastian from work wouldn’t have cared if the whole design team had burst into tears.
Intriguing, yes. Not that she was actually interested, Neely told herself firmly. Just…curious. And appreciative—in a purely academic, architectural way.
He was still annoying. He owned her houseboat. He thought she’d paint it pink. And he believed she was sleeping with Max!
She narrowed her gaze at him. He ended the call and tossed the phone down again, then stood there a moment, staring in her direction. But somehow Neely didn’t think he was even seeing her.
What he was seeing, she didn’t know.
And then her own cell phone rang.
“Hey, what’re you doing?” Max asked.
She smiled. “Trying to convince Sebastian Savas to sell me Frank’s houseboat.”
“What?” He sounded as shocked as she had been last night when Sebastian had walked in the door.
“Long story,” Neely said. She saw Seb turn to come back into the living room. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me at dinner,” Max said.
Ordinarily she would have begged off. She had gone sailing with Max yesterday. They were going out again tomorrow. Of course she was glad he was getting a life after years of having his nose to the grindstone. But his entire life shouldn’t revolve around her.
“I’ve heard of a great sushi bar,” Max tempted her just as Sebastian walked through the door and gave her a narrow suspicious look.
On the other hand, why not?
“I’d love to, Max,” she said delightedly.
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“See you at seven,” she trilled and hung up. “Max and I are going out for dinner,” she told him, just in case he hadn’t heard.
“Lucky you.” His voice was flat.
“Yes, indeed,” Neely said brightly. “We’ve had so much fun getting to know each other.”
“I’ll bet.” A muscle ticked at his temple.
“He’s found a new sushi bar he says we have to try. I have a bit of work to do, but I couldn’t say no. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” Was she laying it on too thick?
Sebastian’s expression was stony. “Did he.” It wasn’t a question.
“Mmm.” Neely gave him one more cheerful smile. “I think I’ll take Harm for a run, then come back and get ready.” She grabbed Harm’s leash and started toward the door. “Bye-ee.”
“Robson?” Seb’s voice, hard and flat turned her right around again.
“Yes?”
“You want to buy the houseboat?”
Her heart quickened. “Yes. Of course. You know I do.”
Sebastian’s hard mouth twisted. “Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
MAKE him an offer?
Like what?
Like what he supposed she was offering Max?
She wanted to strangle him. Or punch him. Or do whatever was necessary to wipe that knowing look off his handsome face.
Instead she went out with Max and grilled him about the man who owned her houseboat.
“You’re interested?” Max asked. “In Seb?”
“I am not ‘interested’in Sebastian Savas,” Neely said, still hot under the collar from Sebastian’s remark. She picked at the spider roll on her plate, poked it with her chopstick the way she’d like to poke Sebastian. “Not the way you think. He just annoys me.”
“Why? Are you still ticked because he thought you wanted everything pink?” Max grinned as he regarded her over his bottle of Japanese beer.
“Not ‘thought.’ Thinks! He thinks I’ll paint the houseboat pink!”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Max said easily. “He’s just giving you a hard time. Maybe he’s smitten.”
“Hardly.” Neely sniffed. “He thinks I’m sleeping with you!”
Max’s laughter was so loud and sudden that half the diners in the small restaurant turned to look at their way.
“It’s not funny!” Neely fumed. She did stab her spider roll then. And her kappa maki for good measure.
Max shrugged and lazed back in his chair, still regarding her with amusement. “You could tell him you’re not.”
“I did,” she muttered.
He didn’t say anything, just smiled and sipped his beer.
Neely glared at him. He grinned. “He has a dirty mind,” she said after a moment.
“Probably. He’s a man,” Max said. “And he thinks I’m in danger of succumbing to your charms.”
She blinked and stared. “You knew?”
Max lifted his shoulders. “He didn’t think much of me bringing you on as the living-space designer for Carmody-Blake.”
“You asked him?”
Max shook his head. “Didn’t have to. He volunteered.”
Sebastian was lucky he wasn’t her kappa maki then. She’d poked it to smithereens. “How dare he?”
“He was looking out for my welfare,” Max told him. “Thinks you’re out to get your claws into me.”
“How dare he?”
“He understands the appeal of a pretty woman.”
“He doesn’t think I’m pretty. He thinks I’m weird. And he doesn’t like what I do.”
“Maybe he wants you.”
Neely looked at Max, horrified, at the same time she remem bered that odd stab of awareness she’d felt this afternoon when she’d come into the living room and spied Sebastian up on the ladder. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said now.
“Just
