skeptical than anything. “Why do you think he’ll move on?”
Why were men dense at the most inopportune times? “Joe, for you, he would step aside. It’s the noble thing to do. And Avery is nothing if not noble.”
Joe shook his head mutinously, as stubborn as Avery at times. “He’ll never forgive me.”
“In a few years, he’ll thank you.” She was completely wrong for Avery; they’d bore each other to tears. “Imagine this. We’re on a double date. I have a veritable cornucopia of sorority sisters who would enjoy the company of a prominent plastic surgeon. We’ll go to dinner and Avery acts rather dejected. She asks what’s wrong. He tells her he’s been betrayed by his brother and that his one true love is no longer true. He would love it!”
Joe raised his dark brows. Oh, he had such a great face. All lines and angles and a nose that he’d broken not once but twice. How could a woman not lust after a guy who’d actually broken his nose?
There she was, getting herself distracted again. She got back to the subject at hand. “Okay, so maybe I’m overstating things a bit, but you must admit, it has a certain Shakespearian flair that Avery would enjoy wallowing in for a while.”
“I don’t know.” At last, progress. He was beginning to waver.
“Joe, I’m not going to break down after twenty-one years and suddenly fall in love with him. It’s time for everyone to stop pretending that my future is preordained as Mrs. Avery Barrington.” She stared at her hands, nine perfectly polished fingernails and one that was short and ragged. She allowed herself one nail, but never more.
“Avery would never believe this. We have nothing in common. Hell, I haven’t seen you in ten years before tonight.”
“Avery doesn’t know that and besides, we spent our formative years together. That counts for something.”
“Going to the same church for ten years does not count as the basis for a relationship.”
“Opposites attract.”
“You’re not my type. Avery does know that.”
Ah, he’d overcome the emotional issues and was now moving to the logical. She had prepared her arguments for both.
“As it stands now, you’re right. But I think it’s time to live a little. Let my hair down, metaphorically speaking, of course.”
He drummed his fingers on the table and she studied his rough and callused hands, imagining what it would be like to feel their touch. The tremors began again. Joe was the kind of guy who inspired tremors, and fantasies. Wild, wanton fantasies that involved motorcycles and possibly leather.
Well, today she was going after her fantasy. “Joe, in the long run, this is the best thing for him. This can’t be healthy. He should be married, populating the world with little Averies that he can train in his image. I’m not the woman for him.”
“I don’t know. I think you both are perfect for each other.”
That’s what everyone else said, too. Frankly, she’d grown tired of it. “Then you don’t know me.”
“Guess not.” He cocked his head, studying her, and she wished he could see more inside her than just the facade. “Not going to do it, Amanda. I won’t hurt Avery.”
“Joe, you’re doing him more harm letting him waste his prime dating years stuck on me.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Joe, Avery is thirty. How many dates has he been on?”
Joe thought for a minute. “A handful, I think.”
“How many girlfriends?”
“Besides you?”
She dug her nails into her palms wanting to scream. “I don’t count!” Still, a few people stared.
“None.”
She lowered her voice. “Joe, Avery is probably still a virgin.”
Joe laughed. “Uh, no. There was this…” He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “But that was a long time ago and it’s none of my business.” He took a sip of wine. “I’m not going to do it. There’s got to be a better way.”
There was no other way. “Fine. Name it. You give me some idea of how I can get your brother to move on with his life, and I’ll forget all about the idea. One. Just one little thing I can do.”
Joe sipped his wine, stared at Avery, shaking hands across the room, and sighed in defeat. “Pretend dating, huh?”
Finally. “More than dating. He’s got to be convinced it’s real, passionate, something that will make him think he doesn’t stand a chance. A torrid affair.” She loved the way the words sounded, coming out of her mouth.
He turned pale. “Torrid?”
She nodded. “Torrid.”
Awareness flared in his blue eyes and all that exotic fire shot in her direction. She struggled to breath. He smiled. “Princess, I don’t think you can do torrid.”
“Is that a wager?” she managed.
As quickly as it came, the fire was gone. He was back to looking at her like everyone did. Avery’s girl. “You think this plan of yours will really work?”
“I’m willing to bet on it, aren’t I?” She held out her hand across the table, waiting. “Are you in?”
He stared for a moment, and her heart began to pound. He had never touched her, in twenty-one years, never once. She had dreamed, imagined, fantasized and now she was going to discover how his skin felt against her own. He wrapped one rough, calloused palm over her silky smooth hand and the tremors started in earnest.
“I’m not going to hurt my brother,” he said, his voice sounding faraway because he was still touching her, and her entire nervous system was threatening to explode.
She swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt him either, but I’m not about to marry him just because I think he’s a nice guy.”
He stayed silent for a moment, then dropped her hand. “I’m not going to rub his nose in this.”
Under the table, where he couldn’t see, her fingers traced the spot where Joe had touched her. “Rub his nose in it? You saw him. He doesn’t even believe it. Yet.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Well,” she pretended to think about it for a moment. “We go out on a few dates. Maybe he could catch me over at your apartment a few times…What does Avery usually know about the women you—date?”
Joe smiled, satisfied and smug, obviously recalling past—dates. Amanda wanted to smack him. Not jealous, not jealous, not jealous.
Thankfully, she saw Avery heading back, arrogant and harmless. Why couldn’t Avery be a jerk? It would make things so much easier. Instead,
