shrugged. ‘Brandy. Sherry. She looked like more of a Candy to me.’ With her suck-my-face-off lips and over-generous cleavage. And everything else Emma was lacking. ‘You didn’t say hello and introduce us. Was that because she was one of your exotic dancers?’
‘You and your date left as we arrived. Was that just a curious coincidence?’
Jake watched her cheeks flush guiltily and felt an instant stab of arousal. Hell. He kept his expression neutral, but something was happening here. And the hot little fantasy he’d had last night about what she’d been wearing beneath that red coat yesterday wasn’t helping.
And now she was undoing the second button of that lab coat, revealing a pair of sexy collarbones and putting inappropriate ideas into his head.
He ground his teeth together as images of black lace and feminine flesh flashed through his mind. ‘Are you going to get ready or what?’ The demand came out lower and rougher than he’d have liked. Then he held his breath as she shrugged out of the coat, tossed it over the couch.
‘I’m ready already.’ She flashed him a cool look. ‘I use the coat to protect my clothes when I’m working.’
His gaze snagged on her outfit—a short black dress shot through with bronze, hugging her slender curves to perfection. He swallowed. The legs. How come he’d never noticed how long her legs were? How toned and tanned? He did not imagine how they’d feel locked around his waist.
Cool it. He deliberately relaxed tense muscles. He’d wait outside, get some air.
But before he could move she picked up an embroidered purse from the couch and walked to the front door. ‘Shall we go?’
He walked ahead, opened the door. ‘We’ll take my car.’
‘I’m taking my own car, thanks.’ She locked the door behind them, then headed towards the hatchback, her heels tapping a fast rhythm on the concrete.
He pressed his remote and the locks clicked open. ‘Hard to get a parking space anywhere this time of night,’ he advised. ‘And we—make that you—are running late already. Stella and Ryan are waiting.’
Swinging her door open, she glanced back at him. ‘Better get a move on, then.’
He started to go after her, then changed his mind. She was in a dangerous mood, and he was just riled enough to take her on. And it might end … He didn’t want to think about how it might end. Because he had a feeling that anything with Emma would need to be very slow and very, very thorough. If you could find your way through those thorns, that was. ‘I’ll see you there.’
She clicked her seat belt on, turned the ignition and revved the engine. ‘Ten minutes.’
Emma’s stomach jittered. Her pulse raced. Trouble. She’d seen more than enough of it in Jake’s hot brown eyes. As if she was performing some sort of striptease. She’d not given it a thought when she’d peeled off her lab coat. But he had. Sheesh. She scoffed to herself. As if he’d give her less than average body a second look when he was surrounded by all those Brandies and Candies and brazen beauties at the Pink Mango.
Flicking a glance at her rearview mirror she caught the glare of his headlights. She deliberately slowed her speed, hoping he’d overtake, but he seemed content—or irritated enough—to cruise along behind her. She could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head.
She let out a shaky sigh and drew a deep, slow breath to steady herself. Easier to blame him than to admit to that old attraction—because no way was Jake the Rake the kind of man she wanted to get involved with on an intimate level.
She accelerated recklessly through a yellow light, Jake hot on her heels. She wasn’t herself tonight. Wrong. She hadn’t been herself since she’d come face to face with Jake in his dingy office yesterday.
Even as a teenager he’d always made her feel … different. Self-conscious. Tingly. Uncomfortably aware of her feminine bits.
Her fingers clenched tighter on the steering wheel. She needed to get herself under control. She didn’t figure in his life at all, nor he in hers. And tonight wasn’t about her or him or even them; it was about Stella and Ryan.
She tensed as the well-lit upscale restaurant came into view, and glanced in the mirror again just in time to see Jake’s car glide into a parking space she’d been too distracted to notice right outside the restaurant.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, this was ridiculous. The restaurant was on a corner and she stopped at a red light, tapping impatient fingers on the dashboard. Seriously, if it wasn’t Stella’s night she’d turn around and go home, pull the covers over her head and not surface till Christmas—
The thump on the car’s roof nearly had her foot slipping off the brake as Jake climbed in beside her. ‘Don’t you know better than to leave your passenger door unlocked when you’re driving alone at night?’
She hated his smug look and lazy tone and looked away quickly. ‘Don’t you know better than to scare a person half to death when they’re behind the wheel?’
‘Light’s green.’
She clenched her teeth, pretending that she hadn’t noticed his woodsy aftershave wafting towards her, and crossed the intersection. ‘What are you doing here? There’s no sense in both of us being late.’ She saw a car pulling out ahead, remembered at the last second to check her rear vision and slammed on the brakes.
‘We’ll walk in together, Scarlett.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ she muttered. She slid the car into the parking spot, yanked the key from the ignition, jumped out and locked her door before he’d even undone his seat belt.
Jake took his time getting out, watching her walk around the car’s bonnet to the footpath. Not looking at him. No trace of the blue-eyed poppy tonight, he thought, locking his own door. She was as prickly as a blackberry bush.
The pedestrian light turned green. She left the kerb and he fell into step beside her. ‘If we’re going to pull this wedding business off, we need to be seen to be getting along.’
She jerked to a stop outside the restaurant. ‘Fine.’
Catching her by her slender shoulders, he turned her to face him, noticed her stiffen at the skin-on-skin contact. ‘We’ll need to have a conversation about that at some point.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
Light from the window spilled over her face. Wide eyes stared up at him, violet in the yellow glow. He slid his hands down her bare arms, felt her shiver beneath his palms and raised a brow. ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing.’ She rubbed her palms together, her gaze flicking away. ‘It’s chilly. I should’ve brought a jacket. I left it on the bed …’
No, he thought, she’d been distracted. Grinning, he let her go. ‘Lighten up, Em, and give yourself permission to enjoy an evening out for once.’
CHAPTER THREE
WITH a light hand at her back, Jake ushered Emma
