No strings attached Read online

  “Definitely not. This is gRAFFITI gIRL’s Mosh Pit Bruise.” She closed her eyes and ran a fingertip over the lighter color just beneath her brow. “And this is Strobe Light White.”

  Eric frowned in earnest this time, as if seeing something that didn’t quite click. And then both brows lifted in disbelief as it hit him.

  “Chloe. Don’t look now, but you’re wearing a football jersey. And I think I saw athletic shoes on your feet. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were up to no good.”

  Chloe pressed her lips together, waiting for him to put the two of her phone calls he’d avoided together with her laughably out of character ensemble. It didn’t take him long to do the math.

  He backed a short step away, yanked the green towel printed with a red Haydon ‘H’ from his shoulder and wiped both of his hands. “The answer is no.”

  She’d never thought this was going to be easy. She just hadn’t counted on coming up on a dead end so soon. “Now, sugar. How can you tell me no when you don’t even know the question?”

  “I’ve got news for you, princess.” His head continued to shake from side to side. “You’re in enemy territory. You start trying to bust my chops and the uproar’s liable to bring down the roof on your head.”

  Chloe did her best to look demure and damaged. “I’m crushed to know that’s what you think of me. Enemy indeed.”

  His attempt to remain firm dissolved into a chuckle under his breath. “I spent a month as your scavenger hunt partner. Don’t think that poor pitiful me act is going to cut any of my mustard. Now, I have customers to see to.”

  Just like that? He was blowing her off just like that? “Excuse me, but I am sitting at your bar and I have yet to see any service.”

  The towel went back to Eric’s shoulder. His hands went to his hips. His expression went from bemused to businesslike. “What can I get you then?”

  This wasn’t going at all like she’d planned, and she had only herself to blame. Had she really thought dressing like a car pool mom would fool Eric into thinking she was anyone other than who she was?

  He’d spent a month in her company, and no pair of shoes or sports jersey would make him forget her tendency to be a bit aggressive at times, assertive at others—a personality blip that held top honors on her list of self-improvements to make.

  Her potty mouth was another issue.

  Right beneath her bad girl reputation.

  Which she needed Eric to save.

  She couldn’t afford not to play this his way. She pulled a glossy menu card from the stack pushed against the wall at the end of the bar. “What’s good here?”

  He shoved a basket of peanuts in her direction, then a basket of pretzels. “Take a look at the menu. I have twenty-five beers on tap. Or one of the bartenders can mix up whatever tickles your fancy.”

  She pretended to pout. “I think my feelings are hurt. We spent an inseparable month and you have to ask?”

  “A hazard of the job. Jason,” Eric called over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving Chloe’s. “Bring the princess here a cosmopolitan.”

  Eric knew it was too early in the afternoon for Chloe’s favorite party drink. But she wasn’t about to call him on it because she knew that’s what he was waiting for. For her to tell him he’d gotten it wrong, that he knew better, that he should use his head and stop acting like a brain-dead jock. But not one of those comebacks crossed her mind as a serious option.

  Her days of busting his chops had to come to an end, or she would never get him to agree to her proactive, career-saving strategy. And since Eric played a major role in her plan, she took a small sip of the bright pink drink when it arrived, and smiled as a peace offering.

  Eric had been standing back, watching her. And when she actually went to sip more of a drink he knew she didn’t want, he pulled the glass from her hand. “What are you up to, Chloe? The answer is still no, but I’m curious what you’re doing here.”

  She picked up a pretzel, snapped it in half. Eric was cute when he was so…discombobulated. “I’m not sure I want to tell you. Not when you think such ugly things about me.”

  “I knew it. You are up to something.” Eric whipped the towel over the bar, which was already clean as a whistle.

  “Well, yes. I am female.”

  “Exactly.” He jabbed a finger toward her. “Which means that whatever you’re up to, whatever you want, is going to benefit you and leave me out in the cold.”

  She fingered the stem of the glass she’d retrieved. “That’s not necessarily true. I seem to remember sharing a tequila kiss that warmed you up plenty.”

  “We were both just this side of drunk—” he held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart “—and you know it.”

  “Just think what might have happened if we’d been rip-roaring.” A thought that had often crossed her mind.

  Eric, obviously, didn’t share her curiosity. “Think what might’ve happened if we hadn’t been drinking at all.”

  “You tell me.” And she truly wanted to know.

  For all their mutual flirtation, there were times when she felt he was only humoring her. And, perversely, she wanted to explore that feeling further. She had no desire to be any man’s comic relief.

  “Give me a break.” Eric was back to rearranging the bar, moving the pretzels this way, the peanuts the other. “I’m not your type and we both know it. At least we know it when we’re sober.”

  She pushed the cosmopolitan away and thought about leaving. Surely she had no face left to lose. “Could you have Jason bring me a diet soda?”

  Hands shoulder-width apart on the bar, Eric hung his head. “Ah, Chloe. Don’t do this to me.”

  “Don’t do what, sugar?” She really did want to hear his reservations, his doubts, his reasons why joining forces was out of the question. She needed to know the dimensions of the wall she’d be butting her head against.

  “Don’t pretend you want something from me that you can’t get from any other man.” His head came up sharply then, and he gestured beyond her, toward the common room and the pub. “In fact, I’ll prove it to you. Ask a favor of any man here and I’ll guarantee you a resounding yes.”

  Chloe raised a brow. “As opposed to your no.”

  “You got it.”

  “Eric, sugar. I’ve been here twenty minutes and there hasn’t been another man who’s said a word to me.” White lies had their uses.

  “Only because I’ve been monopolizing your time.”

  “You’ve also been giving me your undivided attention and ignoring the other customers sitting at the bar. And neither one of us is the least bit tipsy.” As if to punctuate her 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 to jar 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 were going 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 place.”

  The beginning was one place to which she preferred not to return. Look at the trouble she was in now because of where she’d begun. “I’m not sure my, uh, situation has a beginning as much as a sudden realization by others that it exists.”

  “English, Chloe. Plain English.”

  “It’s about work and my reputation for savoring a good expletive.”

  Eric let out a loud whoop. “I knew it was bound to happen. You’ve been called on the carpet for your potty mouth, haven’t you?”

  “And that’s another thing,” she responded, rising to the debate. “Why is it a potty mouth for a woman and straight business vernacular for a man? Another totally unfair double standard.” It was one of her pet peeves.

  Eric was scarcely able to keep a straight face. “I’d think it would be hard to be one of the guys when you work for a company called gIRL-gEAR.”

  “It’s perfectly acceptable for me to be one of the guys when it’s a partners-only situation. When we have late night meetings or when we do our thing at Macy’s loft. Make that Lauren’s loft, since Macy is in the throes of cozy domestic bliss with Leo.” Chloe went back to toying with her straw, dunking her ice cube. “It’s when I…forget myself at the office that Sydney tends to get bent out of shape.”

  “It’s hard to imagine Sydney Ford getting bent out of shape over anything.”

  “She takes the business seriously. And that includes how each of the partners’ actions and reputations reflect back on gIRL-gEAR.”

  “So, you’ve been busted.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “Sounds like it was your manner of speaking.”

  This was where she needed to tread carefully—and where she most needed his help. She held up her own thumb and index finger. “There’s a little bit more.”

  “More?” Eric braced both forearms on the bar edge and leaned into her space, as if he couldn’t stand not knowing what other trouble she’d gotten herself into.

  Funny how she wanted his interest on the one hand, but hated that he showed it on the other. She wished she was here for any other reason.

  Now that the time had arrived, she hated that she’d had to come here at all. That she couldn’t get herself out of this ridiculous mess on her own.

  She drew long and hard on her straw, swallowed and, before she could think twice, blurted out, “It’s my dating habits.”

  “You mean, the men you go through like diet soda?” he asked, spinning her now empty glass on the bar. “The first sip satisfies, but then the ice melts and the fizz is gone?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not one hundred percent accurate.”

  “What is accurate, Chloe? Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t find enough fingers and toes to count the number of men I’ve seen you with this year. And it’s only April.”

  Was it really over twenty? She’d obviously lost count. “I like men. I like dating. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out immediate incompatibility.”

  “Wait a minute. Let me get this straight.” Eric shook his head, signaled a time-out. “Every time you go out with a new guy, you give him a compatibility test? You don’t try for friendship first? Or for just plain fun?”

  “Fun and friendship also require compatibility, sugar.”

  All girls had their expectations and fantasies, didn’t they? So what if hers were nonnegotiable. She knew she’d heard at least one song about a woman bemoaning the absence of her own John Wayne.

  Chloe’s preference just happened to be Cary Grant.

  “And you and me?” Eric asked. “You think we’re compatible?”

  They had fun together. She counted him as a friend. It was a start, wasn’t it? “We spent a month digging through one another’s baggage and I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  Eric seemed momentarily at a loss for words. But his thought processes seemed equally stunned, judging from the sudden blank look on his face. But then he caught her off guard, retorting, “Didn’t we just determine that you’re here because you need a favor? Not because of any compatibility issue.”

  “I do need a favor. I need an escort.” She stated it flat out, hoping the shock value would knock him off balance and into capitulation.

  “You want me to take a poll? See which of my customers meet your criteria?” Eric cast a sweeping glance around the bar, then narrowed his gaze on her. “Or you want I should call in a favor from a buddy you haven’t met yet? Press one of the high-profile athletes I know into service?”

  As if! “No. I want you.”

  He frowned, backed a safe step away and crossed his arms. “What do you mean, you want me?”

  She placed both hands, palm side up, on the bar. “I want you to be my escort.”

  “So you can bust my chops all the way to next Tuesday?”

  The first uncomfortable twinges of failure stung the backs of her eyes. “You’re jumping to unfounded conclusions, sugar.”

  “Unfounded conclusions and unqualified no’s. Yep. I can see why that would make me the man you want.”

  She wasn’t so sure any longer. Not this way. Not with this bitterness she’d never seen coming. She reached for her red leather mini knapsack and her wallet inside, intending to settle up for the cosmopolitan and the diet soda.

  Men. Never again.

  With a hand
placed gently over hers, Eric stopped her from paying and from leaving. His expression had softened, as had his voice when he said, “C’mon. Let’s go talk in my office.”

  2

  HIS HAND AT THE SMALL of Chloe’s back, Eric guided his unexpected visitor across the bar’s common room, past the swinging doors leading to the kitchen and into a short hallway toward a door boldly marked: No Admittance Without Proper Authority or Play-Off Tickets.

  The small of Chloe’s back was really small. The girl had a mouth on her, a big one, and an attitude to match. But boy, was she a curvy little thing. Made it hard to decide whether he wanted to date her or adopt her.

  One thing he knew was that he wasn’t going to say yes to whatever cockamamie scheme she’d come here to pitch. If she didn’t want him for more than her own self-serving reasons, then screw her.

  And screw him if he hadn’t learned not to let himself be used.

  Chloe may have thought she’d come away from their scavenger-hunt month holding the upper hand, but he’d done his share of scouting, and he knew a thing or two about Chloe he doubted she knew about herself.

  As tough as she seemed, she was appealingly vulnerable. He didn’t know why she protected herself with her big bad attitude, but if made her feel safer, he’d play along. At least until he learned more about what had brought her here.

  Because Chloe Zuniga didn’t show up out of the blue looking like a cross between a Maxim cover model and a soccer mom without a damn good reason. A better one than needing an escort.

  He reached for the doorknob, guided her forward, moved his hand from the small of her back to her shoulder. A surprisingly muscled shoulder, come to think of it, considering she hated physical activity.

  His office decor reflected the rest of the bar, which meant Chloe would no doubt be just as uncomfortable in here as she had been out there. He’d give her an A, though, for effort, because she had made a big one. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her wear athletic shoes.

  As he watched her take in the long wall covered with autographed photos, he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d look like having worked up a good sweat. He couldn’t even imagine, having never seen her with a single blond hair out of place, unless tousled on purpose for the sake of being sexy. He’d seen rational men turned into blubbering idiots by that bedroom hair and those big, violet-colored eyes.