Page 10 of 40 and (Tired of) Faking It
“Speaking of the city…?” Linc said, interrupting JD’s distraction. JD narrowed his eyes on the small square containing his friend’s face, but didn’t speak. He was too busy trying to decide what to share and what not to.
“I don’t like that look,” Carter said.
“Me neither.” Linc again. “What’s up? You met with the mayor this morning, right? She give you a hard time?”
Well, she made something hard.
“No, not a hard time exactly,” was what he said instead.
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
JD described meeting Lily at the local coffee shop, adjourning to her office.
“And?” Carter asked, his voice deepening with irritation at JD’s delay.
“And she made me an offer.”
Linc’s eyebrows shot up. “What kind of offer?”
JD scowled at his friend’s tone.
“JD…” Carter leaned forward, his gaze intensifying. “What aren’t you telling us?”
When JD remained silent, searching for words, Linc chuckled. “Don’t tell me the lady mayor got under your skin? I knew you didn’t go for the twentysomethings anymore, but—”
“She’s a mayor,” Carter finished for their friend. “She’s probably seventy if she’s a day. That’s…” He grimaced rather than continuing.
“She’s not seventy,” JD grumbled, annoyed.
A chorus of hoots filled the courtyard.
“Just how old is she then? Eighty?”
Linc’s jab loosened JD’s tongue. “Forty. She’s forty. I wouldn’t date an eighty-year-old.”
“But you’d date her?” Linc inferred.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Just what is this lady mayor like, JD?” Carter asked.
“She’s…”Sexy. Smart. Makes me wish I had time to focus on something besides this resort.
And therein lay the danger. He’d broken up with Alicia to preserve that very focus. And no matter what his patterns in the past, sleeping with Lily while their project could very well depend on her support would keep him away from anything beyond flirting—whether he wanted it to or not.
“She’s shrewd,” he finally said. Loosening his reluctant tongue, he went on to describe their meeting and Lily’s ultimate offer.
Linc was laughing by the time he finished. “She sounds like a ballbuster. Good for her.”
Carter wasn’t so easily amused. “You won’t be saying that when she refuses to back us with the planning commission.”
Normally he took his friends’ teasing lightly, because that’s all it was. But for some reason when it came to Lily, it irritated him. “She didn’t refuse—”
“And she didn’t say yes,” Carter pointed out.
Linc shrugged. “There’s always a cure for that.”
JD frowned. “What does that mean?”
