The Schemer

by Avery Flynn

  “Like I could get that lucky,” she shot back.

  “Fine.” He held up the quarter, giving her a close-up view of his strong fingers and the unexpected calluses she never expected to see on someone who seemed like he had gotten his money the old-fashioned way—by inheriting it. “You win, no cooking for me. I win, we go to Alberto’s and you pretend to have a good time with me.”

  Danger didn’t begin to cover that. Running away was the smart plan. Too bad her body had stuffed her brain in a rock-filled bag and dumped it in the harbor. “All I’m agreeing to do is accompany you. Nothing more.”

  He nodded.

  Oh hell. She gave in. One lunch for two months of nothing burned was worth the risk. “So flip already.”

  “Heads,” he called as he flicked it up into the air.

  He caught it and slapped it down on the top of his hand. It was heads.

  The lucky little shit. “The odds were definitely in my favor.”

  “I have very talented fingers,” he said as he put the quarter back in his wallet. “And the rest of me ain’t so bad, either. Talk to you soon, sugar. We have date plans to make.”

  “Oh no,” she said, holding up her hand in protest. “I only said I’d accompany you. This is most definitely not a date.”

  He slid his wallet into his pants, a self-satisfied cocky grin on his face. “To-may-to, to-mah-to.”

  “Of all the—” Her words died on her lips—or more like his lips blocked her words as he dipped his head down and kissed her.

  It was as delicious as it was unexpected, and her body reacted before her brain had a chance to process. Demanding, firm lips that promised a million sinfully hot things. An insistent tongue that teased as much as it taunted when he drew it across the sensitive seam of her mouth. His muttered, desperate groan against her soft flesh that made it impossible not to open her mouth, seek out his tongue with her own, and return the kiss. And just like that, it went from a kiss to something more.

  Then, he broke away and took a step back, his gaze never leaving her face. He ran a hand through his hair before squaring his shoulders and tightening his tie. “I’ll be back after the show ends so we can figure out the details.”

  Lips swollen, heart racing, and reality beginning to sink in, Everly watched as her downstairs nemesis strutted through the crowd and walked out the front door of the Black Heart Art Gallery into the cool night while she roasted inside. Damn that man. She wasn’t taking him to lunch. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d end up either killing him or fucking him—neither of which was a good option. So when he came by later, she’d just tell him so. And she’d keep her lips to herself this time. Really.

  Chapter Five

  Three hours later, Tyler walked through the back door to the art gallery, accessible from the residential side of the building. The space was nearly deserted, with only a few of the catering staff cleaning up and a few art buyers lingering by the front door chatting with the artist, who looked like he’d just come down off a six-day meth binge. A quick scan confirmed Everly must be in the back office.

  Since sitting on his ass and waiting for something good to happen wasn’t what got Tyler out of Waterbury and into the rarefied air of Harbor City’s elite, he wasn’t about to twiddle his thumbs and wait for Everly to come up with a clever scheme to get out of lunch. Left to her own devices, the stubborn woman would probably feign a heart attack. What he needed was an ally to take this plot from plan to reality, one he spotted next to a table littered with wineglasses, a few crumpled napkins, and what could only be described as a very artistically folded show brochure. Helene held a glass of white wine in her hand, gave it a tentative sniff, and turned up her nose in revulsion.

  Perfect timing, Jacobson.

  Tyler crossed the gallery and, when he got close enough, lifted the bottle of Helene’s favorite Sangiovese wine from Tuscany that he was carrying so she could read the label. It was expensive and—even more important—tasted fantastic.

  “Oh, thank God.” Helene dumped the offending Chardonnay into a mostly empty wineglass still on the table and held out her now empty glass.

  “I take it you’d like some?” he asked as he poured one for her and then plucked a fresh glass from the table and poured one for himself.

  “You know me so well.” She lifted the glass, inhaled the bouquet, and her shoulders relaxed with a relieved sigh. She took a leisurely drink. “Instilling good taste in other people is just so exhausting. So what do you want help with?”

  Barely tasting the wine as he stared at the closed door to Everly’s office, he asked, “What makes you think I want anything?”

  “Almost two decades of watching you work your brilliant schemes.”

  He stood just a little bit taller. “Brilliant, huh?” Okay, he had an ego. Shocker.

  “As if you don’t know.” She shook her head. “The Singapore deal was quite impressive.”

  “That’ll be nothing compared to when I land Alberto Ferranti.” It really was the deal of the year. Nearly a billion dollars would go into setting up the Ferranti hotels across the U.S. The money was amazing, but the prestige of earning the commission as the project consultant was what he really craved.

  “And what does that have to do with buttering me up?” Helene asked, cutting through all the bullshit as per usual.

  “I’ve been trying for months to get a one-on-one with Alberto Ferranti.”

  Helene raised an eyebrow. “You and every other hungry consultant in town.”

  “Exactly,” he said, relieved that she got it right away. “I could finally make that happen Saturday, but only if Everly doesn’t murder me at lunch at Alberto’s. I may have finagled an invite as her date earlier when she couldn’t refuse.”

  She took a leisurely sip of her wine. “So how do I play a part in this little scheme of yours?”

  “You should come, too. She’ll say yes if it feels less like a forced date.” Not that he wanted a date of any kind with his snarly neighbor. It was bad enough that he couldn’t stop kissing her in the middle of their inevitable arguments lately.

  “So I’m the…what do they call it?” Helene asked. “Third wheel?”

  “Come on. We both know you’re bored. Admit it.” He waved his hand, gesturing to the gallery, now empty except for two waiters picking up the very last of the trash and giving Helene a wide berth, before turning back to face her. “If you still spent most of your days maneuvering your sons into doing what you wanted them to, then you wouldn’t be here with bad wine and good art.”

  “Great art,” Everly corrected, her voice strong and sure behind him.

  He pivoted toward her voice—the one that did things to his dick—and watched her stride across from the nearby door of the staff break room where the caterers had set up. Damn. She never did or said what he expected her to. And he sincerely hoped she hadn’t caught his entire conversation with Helene.

  Don’t stare at her mouth. She stopped within arm’s reach. He kept his hands to himself and…looked right at her mouth. His cock approved. His brain did not. “Just the woman I was looking for.”

  “Lucky me,” Everly said, sarcasm dripping from each syllable like bitter honey.

  “Well,” Helene said, stifling what sounded suspiciously close to a chuckle, looking from Everly to Tyler and back again. “I’ll see you two Saturday at Alberto’s.”

  Tyler managed—just barely—not to let his relief show. He was getting a case of this wine for Helene as a thank-you.

  “That’s great,” Everly said. “I didn’t realize he’d invited you, too.”

  Helene picked up her purse from the table and gave Everly a knowing look. “I’ve never had a problem getting invitations to anything.”

  Now that he could believe. He, on the other hand, spent years fighting for a place at the table.

  The Carlyles’ longtime driver, Linus, obviously using some kind of ninja magic, appeared at the gallery door right as Helene neared it. Tyler watched her leave—the other
stragglers right after her—while he sipped his wine, determined to draw out the silence until Everly broke it. She wasn’t the sit-around type any more than he was, but he’d had longer to perfect the facade.

  She narrowed her dark-brown eyes at him and jutted out a hip, planting her hand on it in a full-on bad girl, somebody-hold-my-earrings kinda way. The girls he’d grown up with had a similar stance. It always meant things were about to get exciting. Of course, that kind of woman was the last thing he needed in his life. He needed someone with the ice-cold reserve that came with being born into Harbor City money, which was exactly why the next step of his plan after landing the Ferranti deal was to find the right kind of woman who would help him cement his legacy as far away from working-class as possible. Then, he’d finally prove the doubters—including his own parents—wrong.

  Everly snatched the wineglass from his hand and set it down on the table next to a half-eaten toast triangle in a partially crumpled napkin. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged as if he wasn’t at least partially holding his tongue to make her nuts. “Staying quiet so you can think.”

  She tossed her head back and groaned. The sound shouldn’t have been a turn on. It was.

  “You.” She pointed a long finger at him. “Are a giant pain in my ass.”

  The staff break room door swung open and a tall woman with enough curly long hair to make a mermaid jealous strolled out. She got a few steps into the gallery and stopped. “Need some help, Evs?” she asked as she flipped a dish towel over her shoulder and glared at him.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the two women were close and that the other woman was ready to go to the mattresses for her friend. She didn’t have the same tough-girl-from-the-streets body language as Everly, but the clues were there—feet hip-width apart, hands loose but ready at her sides, and the come-at-me-douchebag, pissed-off-Amazon-warrior-level glare that actually had him ready to take a step back.

  “It’s okay, Kiki,” Everly said, waving off the other woman. “You’re sure you’re okay with finishing up?”

  “The team and I will have everything squared in just a few,” she said, continuing to give Tyler the evil eye. “Go on home, Ev. How you walked around as long as you did in those shoes, I have no idea.”

  Everly’s shoulders dropped a few inches and the tired lines around her eyes softened. “Thanks, I owe you.”

  Obviously deciding that she’d delivered her warning to him, Kiki turned her attention back to Everly and chuckled. “I’ll add it to your tab. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Oh, him?” Everly gave a dismissive wave with her hand. “This is 2B.”

  “This is Mr. Burn the Joint Down?” Kiki’s glare disappeared, and she gave him an assessing up and down. “Huh.”

  He had no idea what to do with that. “You ladies know I’m right here, yes?”

  “Yeah,” they responded at the same time in the same totally unimpressed tone.

  Then, Kiki turned her attention back to Everly. “Go on up. We’ve got everything down here.”

  “Thanks again.” She hustled over and gave the other woman a quick hug, and then strolled over to the door leading upstairs to the apartments. She paused with her hand on the knob and looked over her shoulder at him. “You coming?”

  It was an invitation he wasn’t expecting but he sure as hell wasn’t gonna turn down. He needed to get this lunch at Alberto’s settled.

  They were halfway up the first flight of stairs, their steps echoing through the stairwell, when she pivoted to look down at him two steps behind. “I don’t know what you’re up to or what you told Helene, but I don’t like it.”

  So suspicious, rightly so, but still it turned him on that she wasn’t the type to just accept the easy answer and had the instincts to know when something was off. Add to that the way her ass looked in that black sheath dress going up the stairs and he was starting to lose brainpower. She was just the type of woman he didn’t need—the kind that made him think about sheets twisted around their naked limbs instead of his latest scheme. He’d learned his lesson the hard way with another sexy, dark-haired firebrand who’d sent him back to Waterbury defeated and humiliated. That wasn’t ever going to happen again. If he didn’t need Everly’s connection to Alberto so badly, he’d treat Everly like the kryptonite she was. That, of course, wasn’t going to happen, though. This deal meant everything.

  “Helene and I were just talking about Alberto’s lunch,” he said, deciding it was time to push his luck before he broke and kissed her—again—because he couldn’t stop his gaze from dipping down to her lush mouth that he wanted on his and locations much lower. “So what time do you want to leave for Alberto’s place in Seaside?”

  “A quarter to never,” she shot back, not giving an inch. “I don’t pimp out my friends, and believe it or not, Alberto is a friend.”

  Was it wrong that a little part of him—well, a big, thick, long part of him—wanted to be her friend, too? Yeah. Yeah it was.

  Chapter Six

  Everly meant every word of what she’d said. Loyalty wasn’t just a thing—it was the most important thing. You didn’t fuck over the people you cared about, and she wasn’t convinced that taking Tyler to lunch at Alberto’s wasn’t screwing over the man who’d helped her get her start in this business and had become a mentor and friend.

  Tyler’s mouth tightened, and he let out a harsh breath as he shoved his long fingers through his thick black hair. “I understand about the importance of friendship.”

  “Do you?” she asked. “I know about how you turned on Sawyer.”

  Years of the silent treatment and even attempts to sabotage a business deal. Finding out that information had tipped the scales against him for her. Tyler Jacobson might be hot as hell with his dark hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, and tight ass, but she wasn’t having it. How someone treated other people was more important than what would no doubt be some amazing, mind-melting orgasms.

  The vein in his temple pulsed. “I had my reasons.”

  She could become immortal, and she’d never understand how the male ego could be so big and so fragile at the same damn time. “He turned your fiancée away.”

  Tyler nodded, his blue eyes cold without even a hint of emotion. “He did.”

  His lack of reaction only sparked hers up, offending her on her friend’s brother’s behalf. She may have grown up on the wrong side of town, but she sure as hell knew the right way to treat people. Righteous indignation flowed through her, hot and demanding. “And you gave him the cold shoulder for years like a total asshole.”

  He swallowed hard, his teeth clenched so tight the jaw muscle bulged, then let out a slow breath that forced all the feeling off his face. “I did.”

  “Why would you ever do that if you”—she held up her hands and made air quotes with her fingers—“understand the importance of friendship so much?”

  Tyler didn’t say anything. He just stared at her like no one had ever had the balls to ask him that before. Well, someone should have, because even if Tyler and Sawyer were friends again, they should have had some kind of come-to-Jesus conversation. Of course, these were two men. Anyone with a Y chromosome seemed to be at a distinct disadvantage when it came to talking through uncomfortable truths.

  Finally, he started up the stairs again, sliding his hand across the small of her back and leading her toward the landing. She didn’t mean to fall into step beside him, but his touch had set off the kamikaze butterflies in her stomach. Once again, fighting felt a lot like foreplay, and her body liked it.

  “This is a conversation that requires alcohol and not being in the middle of a stairwell,” he said, holding open the door leading from the stairwell to the second-floor hall. “Come over to my place, and I’ll tell you the whole thing. I’ll even make us some food.”

  That stopped her feet halfway through the door. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Pasta,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll boil some noodle
s, throw on some sauce. Even I can’t mess that up.”

  Of course, her mutinous stomach picked that moment to growl. With a knowing smile making him look more relaxed than he had all evening, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. Holding them up in the air, he jingled them. There was no missing the throwback to her taunting him in the parking garage.

  “Unless you’d rather flip for it?” he asked.

  She laughed despite knowing better. “Fine, but I haven’t agreed to take you to Alberto’s for lunch with him thinking we’re an item. And if the smoke alarm goes off, I’m out of here.”

  “Yet,” he corrected. “You haven’t agreed yet.”

  Good God. The cocky bastard thought he’d get her to agree. And heaven help her if she did.

  They walked down the hall together to the door of his apartment. The building’s beautiful art deco style architecture had called out to her art-loving soul, demanding she look into its history. It had originally been planned as a high-end luxury boutique apartment building. The street-level floor originally planned as a lobby and gym among other things. Each floor of the three-story building had two large—especially by Harbor City standards—apartments separated by a wide hallway. For whatever reason, though, the project had fallen through before the renovations had been completed. The company that owned the building had gone through with the plan, except for the street level, which had been turned into a space perfect for her gallery. Too bad the landlord had recently hit her up with building maintenance and taxes that had her accountant calling for mercy. It was a typical triple net commercial lease, though she thought she’d be in business a bit longer before the nut came due. But that problem could wait for another day.

  She expected Tyler’s apartment to be a replica of hers. As soon as he opened the door, though, she realized how wrong she’d been. While her apartment was dominated by a huge living space filled with color and walls begging to be decorated with thought-provoking art, his was centered around a massive gourmet kitchen divided from the living room with an island big enough to seat eight. Other than the slate gray of the granite countertops, almost everything else in the apartment was done in tasteful and completely boring taupes, creams, and whites. There weren’t any photos or art on the walls or the fireplace mantel. The place kind of looked like a professionally designed apartment for a luxury furniture store website. Of course, the photographer would have insisted on hiding the five boxes stacked one on top of the other near the sliding doors leading out to the balcony. She could think of only a single explanation for the boxes and the lack of a personal touch.