Page 27 of The Billionaire in Her Bed

Not that Brooke resented her sister. Each and every one of the choices Mallory had made—from culinary school to working in the family business—were ones that were right for her. Brooke wished their parents could see that she had done the same thing, that they had two very different daughters, and that the life she’d chosen, while not the one they wanted her to have, was right for her.

“They only want you to be happy,” Mallory insisted.

“Yeah, so long as my definition of happy matches theirs.”

Mallory shook her head and took a sip from her water glass. Brooke followed suit. The cool water did nothing to douse her rising irritation. She should be used to it by now, but her parents’ seeming inability to remotely understand her still had the ability to piss her off if she let it. She took a deep breath and released it, long and slow. With each puff of air, she felt her anger dissipate, downshifting her mood from royally ticked to mildly miffed.

“I’m sorry, Mal.” Brooke reached across the table and squeezed her sister’s hand. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior for your doctor.”

“Your best behavior?” Mallory laughed and squeezed back. “That’s not saying much.”

The waiter delivered their drinks. Brooke had barely taken a sip of her bloody mary when their parents showed up with Mallory’s doctor in tow. Introductions were made and more drinks ordered—coffee and juice, straight up. No alcohol before noon for the perfect people.

“So, Brooke,” her mother started in once the waiter left to fetch their beverages of choice. “No one joining you today?”

Brooke risked a glance at the cell phone to the right of her place setting, where she’d strategically placed it in the hope that it would ring so she could feign some sort of emergency and escape. Under ten minutes from arrival to insult. A record, even for her mother.

“Obviously,” she said, gesturing to the empty chair beside her.

“Hunter.” Her mother turned her attention to Mallory’s beau, and for a moment Brooke thought she’d been spared, at least temporarily. “Surely you know some eligible men for Brooke. One of your colleagues at the clinic, perhaps. Or maybe a former classmate at Columbia.”

“How about Felix Oliver?” her father suggested. “Don’t you play tennis with him at the Vanderbilt Club?”

“I believe he’s recently engaged.” Hunter eyed Brooke, his mouth drawing into a thin, critical line. “But I’m sure I could dredge someone up.”

Strike three.

She and Mallory were going to have a long talk when they were alone. Her gaze shifted to her sister, who fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes downcast and her expression solemn. She needed to ditch this judgmental asshole and fast. What did she see in him, anyway? Okay, so he was supposedly some sort of rock star in the medical community. That didn’t give him the right to be a pretentious prick.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Brooke took a healthy slug of her bloody mary and frowned. Not nearly strong enough to survive this shit storm. She said a silent prayer the waiter would hurry back so she could order another, sans tomato juice. “I can dredge up my own dates.”

When she wanted to. And lately she certainly hadn’t had any problem, thanks to a certain stubborn number cruncher who was supposed to have been a one-night stand. Emphasis on supposed to have been.

The guy was nothing if not persistent. Since their visit to the Laundromat-cum-arcade, he’d convinced her to visit the sea lions at the New York Aquarium, ride the East River Ferry, and tour the Brooklyn Navy Yard. God only knew what he had up his sleeve next.

And that was during daylight hours. Then there were the nights. Long, leisurely nights filled with every kind of sex a person could imagine, and some that hadn’t entered her wildest dreams. And she’d had some pretty wild dreams. Slow, steamy shower sex. Hard and fast, up-against-the-wall sex. Half-clothed, bent-over-the-kitchen-counter sex. And one particularly memorable bout of semi-public sex in the back of a taxi on the way home from Brooke’s favorite Indian restaurant, a little hole in the wall in Park Slope with the best chicken tikka masala east of the river.

Step-by-step, inch-by-inch, Eli had worn her down, stormed past her defenses and wormed his way into her daily—and nightly—routine. Which, while it had certain fringe benefits like multiple orgasms, also scared the ever-loving shit out of her. Because the truth was, orgasms or not, she was really starting to like the guy.

At first glance, he might have looked like every entitled asshole she went to high school with. But underneath his designer duds, Eli was about as different from those jerks as peanut butter was from jelly. Being with him was easy. No expectations. No pressure. She could dress how she wanted, do what she wanted, say what she wanted without worrying about being held up to some artificial standard of perfection. Instead of judging her, he listened—really listened like he was interested, like he cared about her thoughts and opinions.

Which presented Brooke with a ginormous problem. She did not—repeat,did not—do relationships. Yet with each passing day, with every new adventure in and out of the bedroom, what they were doing was starting to look more and more like just that. A—gasp—relationship. One that was already messing with her five-year plan. Hell, she’d barely written in the weeks since their infamous spaghetti dinner. Her pages sat on her drawing board, untouched, mocking her. Like the email from her agent asking how the revisions were coming along, which she hadn’t responded to.

She had to get it together and fast. Compartmentalize things. Work in one neat and tidy box, hot sex—and nothing else—with Eli in another. It was that or end things with him all together, a thought that was strangely terrifying to her.

“That would be lovely, Hunter,” her mother blithely continued as if Brooke hadn’t shot down her little matchmaking scheme. It was hard to believe, looking at her now, but Pamela Worthington had once been a promising opera singer, a mezzo-soprano theTimescalled “a vocal powerhouse.” She’d left all that behind for the sake of her “perfect” society marriage, and she expected her daughters to do the same.

Fat chance, Brooke thought. Mallory might be willing to play along, but Brooke had her own ideas about her future. And none of them included sacrificing her dreams at the altar of the upper crust.

“You four could double date.” Her mother rubbed her manicured hands together, practically salivating onto her salad plate. “I’m sure if Brooke could find a nice young man instead of the degenerates she seems to gravitate to, she’d settle down and get married, maybe start a family.”

“I’ve found a nice young man,” Brooke blurted without thinking, wishing as soon as the words were out of her mouth that she could yank them back. Where in holy freaking hell had that come from? Not two seconds after vowing to compartmentalize her life and she’d already let Eli escape from his damn box.

Her mother’s head snapped up like someone had mentioned a sale at Barneys. “Who is he? Do we know him? What does he do? Is it serious? Why didn’t you bring him?”

Five questions without taking a breath. Another record. Her mother was in rare form today, even for her, and she wasn’t going to be satisfied until Brooke threw her a bone or two.

Brooke reached for her half-empty glass. Where was that waiter? She needed that juice-less refill like yesterday. “Which one of those do you want me to answer first?”