She shrugged and looked away. “Why are you interested in me? There’s lots of girls out there for a guy like you, and I’d bet they’d be a lot nicer than I was. But you . . . you got a cat to ask me out, didn’t you?”
Edie was astute, he’d give her that. “Of course not,” he said, keeping his words light. “I love Lady Cujo. She’s absolutely what I was missing in my life.”
“Uh huh,” she said, smiling. “So I guess my question is . . . why me? We didn’t exactly click when we first met.”
Because my brother’s an idiot and he’s in love with your sister? Because he won’t buckle down and go back to work until he bangs her, and that’s why I suddenly have a cat and a date with you? Except he couldn’t say any of that, because the fair Bianca seemed to be holding out on Levi, and if Edie found out what was happening, she’d blurt it all out to her sister, and then Levi wouldn’t get what he wanted in order to be creative, and then Magnus would be the one who suffered.
It was all pretty damn exhausting, really. And no matter what he did, Magnus felt like he was the one getting the short end of the stick here.
But Magnus could be charming when he needed to be. After all, he’d managed to squeeze two billion from a computer company for one single computer game. He could romance a cat lady.
So he brushed a finger along the edge of Edie’s jaw. “Why not you?”
“Seriously?” She pushed his hand away again. “How about giving me a non-bullshit answer?”
Annnnd this wasn’t working. New tactic. “All right. Here’s some non-bullshit for you. You want to know why I like you? Because you can cut like a knife with that tongue. Because you don’t let me get away with anything. Because you have a pretty banging body, and because that mouth is incredibly fuckable. Because you’re smart, and the whole cat thing kind of intrigues me, despite myself. And your mouth is really damn sexy. How’s that?”
Her lips curled in a faint smile. “Better,” she murmured, voice husky.
“That, too,” he said. “That throaty thing you do with your voice. That’s on the list, too.”
She chuckled, then looked up at him thoughtfully. “It’s been a while since I’ve dated. I’m not sure I’m ready for kissing yet. Especially in these circumstances.”
He had to admit, he was a little disappointed to hear that. He was a guy, after all. His dick was already planning out when it could be inside her. “Circumstances? First date?”
“I was thinking more like the reptile-house thing.”
“We can go back outside?”
She shook her head, smiling, and slid out from under his arm. “The first date thing, too.”
“Fair enough. I can wait for date number two,” he said easily.
“In the meantime, you can tell me about your cat.”
“I sure wish that was a double entendre,” Magnus grumbled.
Edie just laughed.
Chapter Six
“So, did you kiss him?” Bianca asked as they got back in the car. Her sister checked her own appearance in the rearview mirror then glanced over at Edie with a critical eye. She made an approving noise. “You don’t look like you’ve been kissed. I hope you followed my advice?”
“I did,” Edie agreed. “No kissing.” She buckled into the seatbelt and stretched her leg out as far as it would go against the floorboards. It ached from her walking at the zoo, but they’d taken it easy and it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Plus, she wouldn’t have complained about it for the world, not when she’d been enjoying herself so much. She’d just ice it when she got home.
“Good. You don’t kiss on the first date,” Bianca told her, pulling out onto a side street and merging into traffic. “That’s the first rule of keeping a man interested. You play a bit harder to get.”
Edie twisted her hands in her lap, thinking of Magnus. His playful, flirty green-gold eyes and that wide smile that seemed to make her insides warm when he looked at her. The way he’d loomed over her in the reptile house, trying to finagle a kiss from her. “I really, really wanted to kiss him, though.”
“No,” Bianca said. “Not for at least a week or two. You know the rule. Men don’t buy the cow if they get the milk for free.”
“But what if the cow really, really wants to be milked?”
Bianca shot her a frosty glare. “No, Edie. Not unless you want to be dumped as soon as another milkshake brings him to the yard.”
“Okay, now we’re just getting weird with the milk metaphors.”
“Just trust me, all right?”
“All right,” Edie grumped. “But now I’m hungry.”
Bianca didn’t look over, her gaze fixed on the traffic, and Edie fell silent, watching the streets of New York move past. Bianca was probably right, she admitted. Her sister knew a lot more about dating than Edie did. Edie’s last relationship had come six years ago and it had ended with a whimper, so clearly she didn’t know so much about hooking a man. Maybe she did move too fast. Maybe the trick was that she needed to move slower. Or maybe she and Magnus should have just remained friends instead of trying to take things further.
But she thought of his smiling mouth, his big body leaning in close to hers. A flush crept over her skin. No, she definitely wanted to see where things were going. Even if it baffled her as to why he was attracted to her, one thing was for certain: She was definitely attracted to him.
“So did he ask you out again?” Bianca turned on her blinker and glanced over at Edie.
“Yes. For this weekend. But I told him no.”
Bianca’s eyes went wide. “You what? Why?”
“Because I’m manning a table for the shelter at the Harvest Festival this weekend and I can’t cancel on them.”
“Edie, dating a billionaire is far more important than saving a few cats nobody wants!”
Her jaw set. “Not to me, it’s not. He’s just going to have to wait.”
“Billionaires don’t wait!”
“Then I guess he and I just aren’t meant to be.” She kept her voice casual, but even as she did, she thought of his green-gold eyes, that bright, unusual color, and the way they crinkled a bit around the edges when he grinned, really grinned. He could have anyone. The moment he smiled at a girl, panties would flutter to the ground. Never mind the size of his wallet. Why he was going through an elaborate setup to get to know her, she had no idea. Her knee began to ache, a dull, steady throb. “I doubt he’s seriously interested in me anyhow.”
Bianca made an unhappy little noise in her throat but said nothing.
***
When Edie had medicated her cats and was curled up in bed with a book, Bianca went up to her upstairs bathroom, quietly shut the door, and pulled out her phone. Today was one of those days that she hated living with her sister, because she had to be quiet and furtive. She turned on the shower to muffle things, and then called Levi.
He picked up on the first ring, as if he was waiting for her call. “Bianca,” he breathed into the phone. “I missed you.”
Of course he did. She studied her nails. The baby pink she’d painted them had chipped on one edge. Damn it. “I missed you, too,” she said automatically, since he expected it. Then she lowered her voice, taking on a sweeter edge. “I’m afraid I can’t see you this weekend, Levi. I’m so upset.” She gave a small sniff to punctuate the upset part.
“No! What’s wrong? I— Is that your shower?”
“I turned it on so Edie couldn’t hear us talk. She’ll get upset if she thinks I’m sneaking around behind her back. You know how she needs me.” Definitely chips in her polish. Drat. That was what she got for buying a cheap color. “I’m sorry, Levi.” She gave another sniff, just loud enough for him to hear.
“What happened on their date?” Levi sounded upset. “Magnus knows he’s supposed to romance her! I’ll talk to him—”
“No,�
�� Bianca said quickly. “Maybe Edie just doesn’t like your brother. Maybe he’s being mean to her.”
“Mean? Magnus slept with half the cheerleading team in college. He can charm the socks off of any woman he wants to. It sounds like he’s just not trying.”
“Well, if you think that’s the case,” Bianca said slowly. Blaming Magnus would make it easier for her than if the problem was Edie. “Either way, we can’t get together this weekend. Edie’s volunteering at the local festival and she won’t go out with Magnus. I won’t be able to drive there to see you.” Her tone became babyish, because she knew he liked that. “And I miss you.”
“God, I miss you too,” Levi said fervently. “If you can’t come to us, then maybe we can come to you.”
“Oh, do you think so?” She put a note of false hope in her little-girl voice and picked at a fleck of fingernail polish. If they came to her and Edie, she wouldn’t have to make that ridiculously long car drive again for a bit, which was good. But she said, “I don’t want to put you out, Levi . . .”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, sweet Bianca. You leave everything to me.”
“O-okay.” She made her voice wobble and flicked the pink fingernail polish chips away.
“We’ll be together soon.”
“Good,” she told him. “I have to go. I’m thinking of you, of course, my sweet Levi.”
“I’m always thinking of you, Bianca.”
“Bye,” she said, and hung up before it could turn into a long, drawn-out session of good-byes. Then, humming, she pulled out a bottle of nail polish so she could fix her nails.
If only everyone were as easy to manipulate as Levi.
***
Edie cuddled the blind Persian cat in her arms. “He’s very sweet,” she told the lady nearby. “Wouldn’t harm a soul. All he wants is to be loved and have a safe environment.” She stroked the soft white fur of the cat. “Why don’t you pet him?”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” the woman said, and began to retreat from the table. “I have two children at home and I’m not sure a blind cat is for us. Do you have any kittens?”
“There are always kittens at the shelter,” Edie said brightly, trying not to judge the woman. She understood, she really did. Kittens always found a home. It was the elderly cats, the ones with issues, the ones that weren’t as cute and charming, that never seemed to find their forever home. Pressing a kiss to the blind cat’s head, she continued to pet it as the woman went to examine the cages full of kittens. The cat had relaxed in her arms and was responding to Edie’s attentions, a far cry from the terrified, trembling thing it had been this morning.
And even though she really couldn’t fit another cat into her house, she was not going to let this baby go back to the shelter. She pressed another kiss to its fluffy, fluffy head.
The Harvest Festival was full of people, with parents holding foam cups of apple cider, children eating candy apples, and people hauling red wagons filled with pumpkins and other crafts. Balloons dotted the air, tied to the wrists of costumed children. It was a cute festival, but Edie wasn’t sure it was the right place for setting up a cat-adoption booth. They’d gotten a few dollars in donations but most people weren’t interested in taking a cat home with them that day.
“This is kind of a bust,” Edie told Peggy, who sat next to her in the booth.
“Told you we should have dressed the cats in costumes,” Peggy said with a sniff.
Edie bared her teeth and snarled at Peggy. You didn’t dress cats in costumes. Not when they were already terrified. She ignored the other woman’s idiocy and continued petting the Persian.
Bianca got up from her folding chair gracefully, tucking her phone away. “Well, things are slow. I’m going to go do some shopping.”
“Fine,” Edie said.
“I’ll be back by . . .” Bianca glanced at her phone screen again. “Five.”
“Go.” Edie’s mood was getting worse by the moment.
As she snuggled the cat in her arms, people passed by. No one stopped at their booth. Fine. Whatever. She’d make sure the cats felt loved today, and then she’d figure something out. Even as she thought of ways she could possibly squeeze a few more lonely cats into her tiny house, a shadow fell over the table. Edie looked up . . . and groaned. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Magnus grabbed the chair Bianca had abandoned a short time ago, flipped it around, and straddled it, sitting next to her. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Is this a setup?” The cat in her arms tensed, reacting to Edie’s body language, and she forced herself to relax, petting the long hair.
“Of course not.” He grinned over at her and her heart gave a pathetic little flip in her breast. “You said you were busy, I happened to be not busy, and here I am.”
She made an unhappy noise in her throat. “You have a hard time with rejection, don’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, you do. Try rolling it around on your tongue. Get used to it. Ree-jec-tee-onnn.” She exaggerated her mouth’s movements, and then clamped it shut when she noticed he was watching her lips with something other than detached interest. Okay, that wasn’t the reaction she wanted, but now that she got it, she couldn’t stop thinking about anything else. She remembered his mouth on hers, firm and decisive, and she wanted to kiss him again.
Stupid Bianca and her stupid rules about not kissing.
“So what is this?” he asked. “I’d say you were playing hard to get, but the cat on your lap tells me otherwise.”
She jerked, startling the cat in her arms. It was like he knew what Bianca had been saying to her. Edie’s eyes narrowed. “I told you I was volunteering.”
“Which is great. I can keep you company.” He scanned the busy festival. The only people even remotely near their booth were children sticking their fingers in the kitten cages. No one was approaching her end of the table with the elderly cats, even though she had a sign that said Adoption Fees Waived Today. Magnus leaned in closer to her. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your scowl is keeping people away.”
Edie gave him a startled look. “What? It’s not me. It’s the fact that they’re elderly cats with issues.”
“No?” He nodded at the white Persian in her arms. “That one looks fine.”
“It’s eleven years old and it’s blind.”
“Oh.” His mouth lifted in one of those huge grins. “Well that explains why it’s not intimidated by your scowl.”
She bared her teeth at him.
“Or that.”
“People don’t want an old blind cat,” Edie said, ignoring his teasing. She pointed at the other two in cages. “That one has diabetes. And the other one only has three legs.”
“So what happens if no one adopts them?”
“They go back to the shelter and wait some more.” She stroked the sweet cat in her lap. “This one’s coming home with me, though. She gets too scared at the shelter.”
“Don’t you already have a lot of cats?”
“A few,” she said defensively. “There’s always room for one more.” There wasn’t, really, but she’d figure it out somehow.
“You have a soft heart, don’t you?”
She ignored his gentle, teasing words, focusing on the cat in her lap. “This cat was loved and cared for by someone for eleven years. Then, because of one small defect, she’s suddenly abandoned by those she loved as not good enough? Thrust into a new scary world where no one loves her and that’s full of frightening noises, and she can’t understand what’s going on because she can’t see? I’m not sending her back to that.”
His gaze focused on her face. “Something tells me it all isn’t about the cat, is it?”
Psychoanalysis? From him? Please. She gave him an irritated look.
He ignored her withering expression and put his arms out. “Can I hol
d it?”
“Do you even know how?”
“It’s a cat, not a porcupine. I’m sure I can figure out the basics.”
“You’ll let her get away.” She leveled him an unhappy look. “I can’t chase her down if you let her get away.”
“She won’t go anywhere. And I’ve been practicing my cat mojo with Lady Cujo.” He winked at her. “Got her purring at the touch of my fingers.”
“It’s a cat, not a hooker,” she sniped at him. “Don’t make it sound so lewd.”
He clutched his chest with a mock-shocked look. “You’re just jealous that I’m talking about her and not you.”
Edie rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not jealous of a cat.”
“Then let me hold that one.”
And because she couldn’t think of a good reason to deny him, and because Peggy was watching her closely, she lifted the cat toward him so he could take it.
Magnus took the cat from her with gentle hands and cradled it against his chest, scratching its back idly. He gave her a triumphant look as if to say See? Which made her just shake her head, biting back a smile. Then he nodded at her. “Looks like you only gave me half the cat.”
She looked down at her black sweater and groaned. White long-haired cat plus black sweater meant tons of cat hair. “It’s a look I’m used to,” she admitted, plucking at a few of the worst tufts. “And it’s a look you’d better get used to if you’re going to keep holding Purrletta.”
“Purrletta?”
“That’s what I’m going to name her.”
“That’s a terrible damn name.” He leaned in to the cat. “She’s going to torture you with that name, isn’t she?”
The cat simply lifted her chin and he obligingly scratched it as the cat settled into his lap as if she were born there.
Traitor. Edie crossed her arms over her chest, half out of annoyance, and half to hide the cat hair on her sweater. “So what would you call her, then?”
He thought for a moment. “You know who was a blind badass? Daredevil.”
“It’s a girl cat.”
“Lady Daredevil, then.”