Love the One You're With by Lauren Layne

though it weren’t totally ingrained in her mind already. “It
wasn’t
like that? Really? Because I seem to remember reading something along the lines of, ‘Grace Brighton may have been determined not to like me, but like most women, all it took was one impeccably timed compliment and she was eating out of my hand.’ ”
    His eyes went regretful. “My phrasing was for the sake of the story. You know that.”
    â€œSo when you said that the date was better than most—that wasn’t just a line?”
    Jake’s eyes flicked briefly to the basket full of warm bread.
Guilty
.
    She’d known it was coming, but it stung all the same. Still, they had an audience. Not exactly the time to confess that his ploy had stung a lot more than her pride.
    They were both saved by the waiter, and after ordering their lunch, Jake leaned forward slightly, his easy smile back in place.
    â€œCan we talk about that text you sent?” he asked, voice huskier than it had been before.
    Grace let her eyes fall demurely to the table. “The one where I mentioned that I had a dream about you?”
    She heard the sound of Julie’s stunned laughter in her ear, followed by a horrified, “Oh, Grace.”
    Grace didn’t feel any remorse about the suggestive text, though. She’d needed to bait the man. So yeah, she
may
have implied she’d had a sexy dream about him …
    â€œI admit, you’ve got me curious about the details of this dream,” he said when she didn’t immediately elaborate.
    She licked her lips as though nervous and embarrassed. “I’m sure it didn’t mean anything. I just got out of a relationship, so I’m a little … parched, you know?”
    His eyes went hot then, his hand once more reaching for hers and doing that trademark little rub of the thumb over her wrist. Grace let him grasp her hand just long enough to make surethe camera would catch the blatant lust on his face. And the shy nervousness on hers.
    Gotcha
.
    Then she pulled her hand away slowly.
    â€œIf you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”
    She heard one of her friends give a disappointed sigh in her ear. Grace’s retreat to the restroom was the signal that the video recorded portion of this date was over. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emma move her camera clutch to her lap before signaling for the check.
    Riley and Julie weren’t so amenable. “Grace, you little tease. We want to hear the rest.”
    â€œNow, girls, you know I never kiss and tell. All I wanted was one lusty look from this guy. And I got it.”
    â€œOh, you definitely got it,” Emma murmured.
    Smiling in victory, Grace pulled out her earpiece and flicked the tiny switch to off. Okay, so the earpiece had been overkill. But it had been the easiest way for Emma to let her know if there were any unanticipated obstructions blocking the camera shot.
    No remorse on that front either. Baiting him with sexy talk wasn’t exactly her classiest move, but she was pretty sure Jake Malone could withstand the itsy-bitsy blow to his ego.
    Lord knew there’d be a dozen women willing to heal his wounded pride.
    Which wasn’t her business, no matter how curious she was about the body under those perfectly tailored shirts.
    Stalling for time, Grace paused at the vanity and needlessly touched up her makeup. She’d taken Riley’s advice and had been amping up the eye makeup a little bit from what she used to wear when she was with Greg, and she wasn’t quite used to it. Her hazel eyes had always seemed too wide to be interesting—they lacked Riley’s cat-eyed mysteriousness, or even Julie’s long-lashed flirtatiousness.
    But she liked the way the extra smudge of dark eyeliner contrasted with the lightness of her green eyes and also made her chocolate-brown hair seem less blah.
    A sex kitten she was not, but apparently she had enough