Page 24 of Brant
“Nuts. Your favorite kind.”
“Yay!”
Juliet grinned at her friend’s lack of enthusiasm. “He still hasn’t called?”
Indigo selected a few pistachios and popped them into her mouth. She had left straight from the store to drop by the bar, thinking that it was too depressing to be going home to an empty house, no matter how luxurious the setting.
“Nope.” Picking up the ice-cold glass of beer, she took a sip and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think I can drink this. How about a glass of white wine instead?”
Juliet simply gave her a stare. “You’ve been living the high life too long. You used to enjoy an occasional glass of Lite.”
“You might be right. I’ve been raiding the wine racks. Brant does stock the best.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
“Absolutely not. I do have my pride. In the meantime…” She picked out some more nuts. “His mother is now tolerating me. I went to dinner with her yesterday.”
Her friend lifted tapered brows. “How did that go?”
“Not as bad as I thought it would. I wanted to blow her off, but I wasn’t brave enough. So, I went with my heart in my mouth, expecting the worst. She was pleasant. It turns out that Brant warned her against saying anything offensive.”
“See?” Jules pointed at her. “The guy’s into you.”
“That might be the case, or it’s a matter of two people living in the same space and feeling something.” She shrugged. “And he’s probably gone to scratch that itch with one of the hundreds of women available to him.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t want to believe it, but I’ve been torturing myself with images of him wrapped in some white bitch’s arms, and it’s lodged in deep.”
“You’re in love with him.”
The quite damning words from her best friend had denial popping to the forefront of her brain, but it could not quite reach her mouth. She just stared. “I can’t be.”
“It’s hard not to fall for a man like him, and as you pointed out, you’re living with him.”
Gulping beer and ignoring the awful taste of it, she sat back and shook her head. “That would be an utter disaster. We have an arrangement. He did me a favor, and I’m grateful. That’s what I feel: complete and absolute gratitude. I have no right to anything else. It would be stupid on my part…” She huffed out a breath and closed her eyes briefly. “I’m in love with him. I’ve fallen in love with a man who’s way out of my league.” She gulped some more beer. “Is this enough to get me drunk?”
Juliet raised a brow in amusement. “Is that the plan? Get drunk and forget your troubles?”
“Yes. No.” She sighed and pushed away the glass. “What am I going to do?”
“First things first. If you don’t already have some sexy lingerie, get some. You have the money now, so spend it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“If you need me to spell it out, then honey, you’re in serious trouble. Did I tell you the time when I wanted to get my husband to sign off on the bar deal?”
“I remember you saying something about a sexy red teddy and some body oil.”
“Exactly,” her friend recollected with a laugh. “I planned it to the most minute detail. The wine, a long, leisurely bath, and the sexy teddy. He was a goner.”
“There’s no way on earth I’m doing anything like that. I would be taking advantage of the situation, and I… I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I cannot humiliate myself that way. What if I misread the situation? What if all he wants is the arrangement? Then I would be putting us both in a very uncomfortable situation, one that we would not be able to come back from.”
“What if that barstool behind you jumps up and knocks you on your ass?”
