Things like, “You’re gorgeous, Ty,” and “You’re one sexy man, darling,” and “I’m the luckiest woman at the fund-raiser because I’m with you.” And “I’m so glad this is a real date, because I’d really like you to kiss me before the night is over.”
“Wow!” he exclaimed, drawing her attention away from her daydreaming. “That’s your sister? The papers don’t do her justice.”
Ty’s words pulled Eleanor right out of her dreamy euphoria. Here they went. How many times throughout her life had she been interested in someone only to have them meet Brooke and forget she even existed? How many times had she been used as a means to get an introduction to glorious, glamorous Brooke?
“You want me to introduce you?”
Her words must have tipped him off, because he shifted, dragged his eyes away from Brooke and looked fully at Eleanor, searching her eyes.
She didn’t look away, didn’t back down.
For once she wasn’t going to be all nice about a man who was with her but wanted Brooke instead.
“Only if you want to, Ellie. Only if you want to.”
She gritted her teeth. The nickname only served to remind her of the contrast between her and her sister.
Forever she’d be Jelly Ellie when put next to beauty-queen Brooke.
“Oh, yes, I want to. Let’s go.” Might as well get it over with. Probably, if the truth be told, an introduction to Brooke had been on his agenda all along. Didn’t he realize all he’d have had to do was mention to the senator that he preferred slender blondes and Cole would have had him taking Brooke to Texas instead?
Brooke held court in the midst of about twenty people, mostly besotted men. She barely paid any heed to Eleanor joining her. Until her gaze landed on Ty.
“You brought Dr. Yummy to meet me.” Brooke’s gaze ran suggestively over Ty. “Goody.”
Goody, indeed. Eleanor wanted to gag. Why was she doing this? She liked Ty. Really liked him. Why was she serving him on a silver platter to her silly, immature sister?
Better to get it over with now than to get her emotions more entangled and then discover she had just been a means to get to her sister.
She already knew how that felt.
“Actually, it’s Dr. Donaldson,” Ty smoothly corrected with an easy smile. He slid his arm around Eleanor’s waist, his hand resting possessively at her lower back. “But as I’m your sister’s date for the evening, you can call me Ty.”
“As in tie me up and tie me down?” Brooke flirted, still eyeing Ty and making no pretense that she was interested.
Gag. Gag. Gag. Did men really find that attractive?
Looking at her sister in her figure-hugging blue dress and flawless appearance, Eleanor decided that if you looked like Brooke men would overlook almost everything. And did.
But rather than respond to Brooke’s obvious interest, Ty lifted Eleanor’s hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to her fingertips and winked at her. “Only if Ellie is the one doing the tying.”
It was a toss-up as to which sister’s jaw hit the floor first.
“Pardon?” Brooke blinked, sure she’d misunderstood, glancing back and forth between him and Eleanor.
Eleanor couldn’t speak. Had Ty really just dissed her sister in favor of her? In public? Had he gone mad?
“Sure thing.” Ty smoothly misunderstood Brooke’s comment, whether feigned or real Eleanor wasn’t sure. “We were headed to the dance floor anyway. Nice to meet any family member of Ellie’s.”
His hand stayed low on Eleanor’s back, guiding her toward the dance floor. She was too blown away to put up any kind of argument, instead instinctively wrapping her arms around his neck.
Ty’s arms settled around her and they swayed in time to the music. “She always like that?”
Wondering at how their bodies had so naturally fallen into rhythm together, at how he had just done something no man ever had—chosen to spend time with her rather than Brooke—Eleanor shook her head.
Maybe she really had drunk more champagne than she’d realized. Maybe she was so drunk that she’d imagined everything that had just happened. Maybe she was really passed out on the ladies’ room floor.
“No?”