Tony slipped his hand around Sylvie’s. “Yep. Can we have a table in the back?”
“Sure. Follow me.”
On automatic pilot, Sylvie navigated through the charged environment as the hostess led them through the crowded restaurant. She picked up snippets of stage-whispered snide remarks as they passed women in thousand-dollar shoes scarfing down ten-dollar plates of dumplings.
“Looks like Henry and Anton’s little girl found herself a rebound fuck…”
Sylvie shook her hair back and kept her eyes straight ahead.
“Caught Daniel blowing a waiter. How she didn’t know I’ll never understand…”
She jerked her chin higher.
“That one works fast. Should have expected it from her kind. Total riffraff…”
Tony stopped so abruptly she collided with his strong back. He sent a smoldering gaze down at the bleach-blond size zero pushing iceberg lettuce around on her plate. The testosterone level ratcheted up to a bazillion and the blond practically melted in her seat.
“Hey there.” Tony’s low voice took on a seductive tone that would force a nun to reconsider vocations.
“Hi.” The blond fluttered her eyelashes.
He leaned in closer. “Maybe if you’d been a little faster, you could have gotten me.”
Pleasure pinkened her cheeks.
“But I doubt it.” He tweaked her snub nose. “I don’t much like your kind. As in, a total bitch.”
The blond’s eyes rounded at the echo of her own insult.
Tony pulled Sylvie forward in the hostess’s wake before the other woman could even think to respond.
Strutting with a little extra bounce in her step, Sylvie struggled to remember that this was all a farce. Tony had stuck up for her as any good pretend boyfriend would. Still, she couldn’t turn off the happy bubbling up inside her.
“Thank you.” She smiled as she slid into the curved booth.
He scooted in beside her, his thigh pressed against hers. “Anytime.”
Heat sizzled up her leg, finding a home in the juncture of her thighs. Her brain had a firm grasp on the whole pretend boyfriend thing, but damn, her body had other ideas. Such as sliding her fingers up his muscular thigh until she connected with the hard bulge she’d glimpsed last night.
“So, can I get you something to drink?”
Latching onto the hostess’s question like a lifeline to Sanityville, Sylvie glanced over the menu. “I’ll take a ginger ale.”
“Just a water for me.”
“Great. Your waitress will be right out with those.”
The hostess spun on her four-inch heels, revealing the unmistakable redheaded occupant of the booth across from them. Ivy Rhodes.
“There she is,” Sylvie whispered.
“That’s why I asked for a table back here. I spotted her as soon as we walked in.” Tony angled toward Sylvie in the booth, bringing his lips millimeters from her ear. “So, that’s the former blogging partner who wouldn’t think twice about stabbing you in the back?”
To anyone watching, they were just a couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. If only that were true.
“That’s the one.” She ignored the catch in her voice and prayed like hell he would, too.
Toying with her hair, he snuggled in closer. “Enough to do it literally?”