Sweet Little Lies by Michele Grant Read Free Book Online Page B

check on you.” He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Can’t wait to hear the story on this one.
Cannot
wait.” He walked back toward the kitchen, laughing.
    “What did he say?” Christina asked.
    “He just welcomed me to New York.”
    “I’ll bet he did. S. Dub?” She said it with a scrunch of her nose.
    “Steven W. equals S. Dub. What, you have no childhood nickname that followed you into adulthood?”
    Our server, Jason, brought wine and a basket of artisan breads. Christina picked up a small roll, broke it in half, and reached for the butter. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
    “You’re never going to see me again after tonight, so what does it matter?”
    She held the roll up and gave me a considering glance. “True. Okay. My family calls me Ti-Ti.”
    I burst out laughing; she was not a Ti-Ti at all.“I can’t see it. You are very Christina Brinsley. Not Ti-Ti B. Where did they get it from?”
    She shrugged.“ChrisTIna Violet T. Brinsley…Ti-Ti.”
    “Never Christy or Tina or Chrissy?”
    “No, sir.”
    “And what does the
T
stand for?”
    “Oh, that’s not something I’d share with someone I wasn’t dating,” she said firmly and bit into the roll. She groaned and her eyelids drifted shut. “Oh my God. That’s amazing.” Her face was a study of bliss as she licked some melted butter off her upper lip.
    Wow. That was sexy. Unexpectedly so. Watching her tongue trail after the butter sent a jolt straight to places thathad no business anticipating attention. She wasn’t even trying and I was lusting in a bad way, just that quickly. I reached for the wine and took a generous swallow.
Nope, still wanted her. Dammit.
She opened her eyes and caught the expression on my face before I could school my features. She went very still.
    “What?” she asked in a quiet voice.
    “Right now, you look like a Ti-Ti. Testing temptation. Teasing and tantalizing.”
    A pulse was beating visibly at the base of her neck. It wasn’t just me. She felt it, too. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “You have a creative side.”
    “I have many sides.”
    “You’re flirting with me.”
    “I’ll stop.”
Stop it, Steve,
I scolded myself.
Stop looking, stop lusting. Just eat, talk, and go.
But it was too late. That man / woman thing was out of the bag between us, and I wasn’t sure either of us wanted to put it back.When Jason brought a dish of chopped shrimp and scallops in a fragrant sauce, we both picked up our forks gratefully.We were hungry and in need of a diversion.

7
I’ve Got All Night
    Christina—Friday, August 14, 9:47 p.m.
    A fter I licked the butter off my lip, the evening took a turn. It went from light and flirty to tense and tingly. Dammit. I didn’t need tingles. I needed light jokes and easy conversation and absolutely nothing complicated.When I looked up into Steven’s eyes, it felt complicated. So I concentrated on the food and the wine and made light conversation.
    I found out his close friends call him Steve. His father was a mail carrier, his mother was a teacher. His twin sister was also a teacher and there was a wide net of extended family: cousins and aunts and uncles. He had grown up modestly and tried his hand at thug life for a short stint in his early teens. He decided he didn’t like it and concentrated his energy on schoolwork after a close brush with the law. He went to UCLA on a full educational scholarship and afterward moved to San Francisco. He started in the operations department of the delivery service and tried to get exposure to each department in the two years he worked there.
    When David came back out with wafer-thin slices of beef, he shared that he had lived with Steven’s family for a whilewhen his own home life wasn’t very stable. He told a story of Steven not letting him watch TV in the evening until he’d finished his homework and Steven being the only person who truly encouraged him to follow his passion in culinary arts. He called