No strings attached Read Free Page A

statement, Jason arrived with her glass of ice and diet soda. Chloe thanked him and stared at Eric while she sipped.
    All he could do was shake his head. “You know, Chloe, I enjoy you too much for my own good. And you know me too well for mine.”
    “I suppose you can blame it on Macy. Her scavenger hunt ended up having repercussions I don’t think she ever imagined.”
    “Yeah.” He lifted a hand in greeting as a patron took a seat farther down the bar. “I heard about Anton splitting from Lauren.”
    “You mean Lauren splitting from Anton.”
    “Go ahead. Believe your bogus female facts.” Eric turned back to face her, his expression cocky, smug, totally male. “I’ll stick to the real man’s telling of the story.”
    Chloe looked at him for a long, intimidating minute. The noise of the bar continued to burst like balloons over their heads. Glasses clinked and televisions blared and the doors to the kitchen swung inward and out. She toyed with the straw in her diet soda, ran her finger around the rim of the glass, dunked a persistent ice cube each time it resurfaced.
    She’d grown up the only female in a household of five males. Eric Haydon could do his best to stare her down, but there wasn’t a question in her mind that she would win the battle of wills. He’d admitted to his curiosity already. All she had to do was keep from revealing too much too soon.
    She knew that about men. When they wanted something, wanted it badly enough and had to wait for a woman to decide whether or not they were worthy, men were putty in a female’s hands.
    And because that idea was so entertaining, she drove the final nail into his coffin. She looked up, over his head, at the television mounted above the bar. “Who’s winning?”
    “Huh?”
    “The Astros’ game. Without looking. Who’s winning?”
    Eric blinked, then blinked again, as if working tojar loose the subliminally recorded score. “Okay, I admit it. You’ve distracted me. Happy now?”
    “I’d be happy with an unqualified admission of your curiosity about what I’m doing here and what I want.”
    “I said I was curious.”
    “You qualified it by saying the answer is no.”
    “C’mon, princess. You can’t expect me to give you an unqualified yes. For all I know, your request involves torture or public humiliation.”
    Chloe glanced beyond his shoulder toward two men at the bar. They were cheering on a third, who was working to down a draft beer without stopping to take a breath. The drink dribbled out both corners of his mouth and down his chin, soaking a line down the center of his T-shirt to the crotch of his jeans.
    “I don’t think you need me to provide public humiliation.” Shuddering, she tipped her head toward the threesome as proof.
    “What do I need you for, Chloe?”
    Chloe pretended to consider Eric’s question while inwardly, her mind raced. She really hated the thought of having to turn on her helpless-female bullshit meter.
    But over the years she’d honed her shtick to a true science. And this situation, more than any other one she’d been in, merited experimenting with her skills.
    She continued to toy with her straw, but now she averted her gaze from Eric’s, keeping her lashes lowered, her pout humble and subdued.
    “You’re probably right,” she cooed, and sighed. “I don’t have anything that you need. But you have something that would really help me out a lot.”
    “A favor? That’s it? You need a favor?” Wearily, he rubbed a hand down his face. “I thought you weregoing to want me to jump through seven kinds of hoops or something.”
    She wouldn’t yet rule out hoops or tricks. Not until she’d convinced him that he’d be doing this favor of his own free will. Maybe if she played her cards right, she’d even convince him the entire idea, from conception to completion, had been his own.
    “Where should I start?”
    He peeked at her from between spread fingers. “The beginning is always a good