Moonlight over Manhattan (From Manhattan with Love 6)

Three hours. Three hours of sitting across from Ethan, knowing he was doing her a favor.

It sounded like a nightmare to her.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“SO HOW IS your live-in relationship?”

“It’s good.” Harriet wedged the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she tugged Madi’s leash to coax her to lift her nose out of the snowdrift. They’d done this same walk every day for a week and both of them knew every inch of it. “She’s settled down and behaving herself. She felt insecure, that’s all.” And she had sympathy with that.

Fliss laughed. “I wasn’t asking about the dog. I was asking about the man.”

“The man? What does he have to do with anything? I’m here because I’m dog sitting.”

“Yes, but the owner is there with you. It’s a unique situation and one which I’m hoping you will exploit.”

“For me, it’s all about the dog.”

“Sadly, I believe you. So how is Doctor Hot-but-Disapproving?”

Harriet thought about the time she’d spent with Ethan. The way he listened and paid attention. “He’s not really disapproving.”

“So now he’s just hot? Interesting.”

Harriet shook her head in exasperation, but she was smiling too. She realized how much she missed talking to her sister. Not even about the big things, but the small things too. How pretty Manhattan looked in the snow. How Madi had learned to sit without moving while Harriet was preparing her dinner. How she’d found the best Christmas present for Daniel—

Cramming the small details of life into a phone call wasn’t the same.

“I barely see him. He’s mostly at the hospital.”

“He can’t be at the hospital the whole time. I mean he has to come home and eat and sleep at some point surely?”

“He does, but we don’t spend time together.” Apart from the three hours they’d spent talking over dinner the night before, and two the night before that. Would Fliss notice the change in her tone? Probably. Harriet knew she was a hopeless liar. She needed lie training, as well as date training.

Her “date” with Ethan was hours away and after tomorrow she was probably never going to see him again. Unless she jumped out of another window and sprained her ankle. Or transformed herself into the type of woman who inspired lust instead of pity. A woman who could seduce a man with one slow blink of her eyelashes.

Dinner? Sure. Just wait while I change into my little black dress.

She was desperate to ask Fliss what she should wear on a date that wasn’t a date but if she did that she knew she’d never be able to wriggle out of the inevitable questions. And frankly it was more than a little humiliating that he was taking her out in order to help her. She was almost thirty. She shouldn’t need help with dating. Why couldn’t he have asked her out like a normal woman?

That would have been the best thing he could have done for her confidence.

But whatever the sentiment driving the invitation, she planned to head back to the apartment soon and spend the next hour trying really hard to make it look as if she hadn’t tried hard.

Fliss was still talking. “So he hasn’t put his healing hands all over you yet? Shame. Have you seen him naked?”

“How are we twins? We are so different.” And she hadn’t seen him naked, but she’d started imagining it whenever he walked into the room, which was unsettling. The longer she spent with him, the more she was wishing that tonight was a proper date.

Why couldn’t she meet someone like Ethan in the normal course of her life?

“You should pretend to be me for a few days. Throw off your shy self and drag him into the bedroom for some fun.”

She wondered how Ethan would react if she walked into his bedroom minus the butterfly pajamas.

But she’d never do that, would she? And even if she did, it wouldn’t work. You needed the personality to go with the actions and she’d never been the sort of woman to confidently strip off her clothes in front of a man without at least small signs of encouragement. “No way.”

“Harriet, he is perfect for you.”

“You’ve never met him and I’ve barely told you a thing about him.”