Kiss & Makeup

He grinned. “I’m a huge movie fan.”

She laughed, a crystal clear sound that tickled like wind chimes. “Is that so? Not even knowing what I was going to see?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m more interested in the company.”

“Okay then,” she said after only a moment’s hesitation. “The theater’s only a few blocks from here. You want to meet in the lobby at seven?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Super.” She clasped her hands together. “I’d, uh, better get back before Armand drags me back by my hair.”

He smiled. “Before you go?”

She arched both brows, nodded.

“Is there another way out of here so I don’t have to sneak out through the bar?”

“C’mon. I’ll take you out through the kitchen. Chef is pretty famous in his own right, so he’ll totally understand wanting to avoid the groupies.”

Quentin turned to follow her through the swinging doors at the rear of the room, the same lightness in his step that he’d noticed after making the decision to return to Texas.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad and quite frankly right now he didn’t give a damn.

SHANDI RIPPED THE YELLOW long-sleeved silk T-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor on top of the cropped black jeans, the denim corset dress, the rose-colored ruffle-front blouse and at least four other similarly inappropriate outfits.

Evan, who’d been sitting on the foot of her bed, collapsed onto the mattress with an exasperated groan. “Why am I here, Shandi? Why the hell am I even here?”

She plodded out from behind her room divider, a silk screen of Mae West prints. Wearing her ratty chenille bathrobe, she dropped to sit on the hardwood floor in the middle of all the clothes.

“You’re here because A, you have nothing better to do, B, April can’t be here and C, I happen to trust your taste and I need the opinion of an eye other than my own.”

“I’m gouging mine out now, so you’re SOL.”

She picked up a lime leather miniskirt and threw it at him. “And you call yourself a roommate.”

“I call myself male, and I come with the requisite lack of fashion sense.”

“Or—so the rumor goes—you don’t come at all.”

Evan levered himself up onto his elbows again. “Is that a reference to my love life? Because I can assure you that the rumor is wrong.”

“Been taking matters into your own hands again?”

“As often as possible.”

Shandi laughed but stopped short of admitting she shared his pain. Her love life of late was nonexistent and her sex life a figment of her fantasies, her hands and one or two very special battery-operated boyfriends.

She sighed. “If I were going out with you or April, I wouldn’t be having this problem, you know.”

“Right. April and I don’t rate.”

“It’s not that and you know it. It’s just that with the two of you I can be myself.”

Evan heaved an enormous sigh. “This may come as a big shock, Shandi, but guys like women comfortable enough to be themselves.”

“I know.”

“Then be yourself. I can’t imagine any hetero guy with half a brain and at least one good eye not being attracted to you.”

Aww, he was so cute with his compliments…or maybe not! “Now I see why April is so crazy about you. You are one amazing sweet-talker, Evan Harcourt.”

“Shandi, shut the hell up and get dressed.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one trying to be yourself without sending a member of the opposite sex screaming into the night.” Willowy cat’s tail of a filly. Long, tall drink of whiskey and water. Uh-uh. Not tonight.

“Woman,” Evan said with a growl, “I’m about to kick your whiny ass back to Oklahoma.”

“That’s it. As The Donald would say, you’re fired. I’ll just do this on my own.”

“Best news I’ve heard all night.” He smacked his palms to his thighs, pushed up from her bed and stood. “Just no blaming me if anything goes wrong.”

“How can it go wrong?” She gave him a narrow glare. “I’m what every half-witted, one-eyed man wants.”

“And on that extra whiny note, I’m gone.”

“Fine.” She stuck out her tongue, then collapsed onto her back in the mountain of clothes and stared at the ceiling.

She was being childish and she knew it, but stress tended to do that to her. She grew pouty and petulant and always felt better after pitching a fit.

But now it was time to get over it. She sat up and thought about Quentin—what she knew of him, what she hadn’t yet learned, what different impression she might make as his date than she already had as his bartender.

It was time to turn the heat up a notch. But how?

It was when her gaze landed on the short green-and-blue-plaid skirt hanging in her closet that she knew exactly. Ooh, but she loved it when a plan came together!

You have a thing for waifish schoolgirls, do you?

“I THINK I STARTED SINGING in front of audiences as soon as I learned to talk.”

It was Tuesday night, nearing seven o’clock. Quentin was sitting in the elegant boutique hotel’s art-deco lobby, relaxing back in one of the plush leather chairs, waiting for Shandi. At least, he was sitting and he was waiting.

The relaxing part had ceased the minute Mrs. Cyprus had sat down in the chair beside him and opened her mouth. She had yet to shut it.

“In grade school, I actually sang the lead in Annie. Can you believe it? I wasn’t even ten years old and I won the part over children older than I was.”

This was what Shandi had saved him from last night, what he wished she would show up and save him from now. Sure, he could save himself by heading to one of the lobby shops, the restaurant or the bar, even back to his room.

But he had this thing about wanting to be right here to see Shandi walk through the front door. To see her before she saw him. He liked catching her unawares, wanting to weigh the expression on her face as she sought him out. Doing so might not tell him a thing, he mused, frowning as he watched a huge black cat stroll through the lobby, but he wanted those few brief moments anyway.