Page 8 of Tempt Me Forever

"Yeah, but you told it with such passion, you know? And you kind of respect him for having the balls to crash your date."

"Oh, Reese," I said, laughing. "You're imagining things."

"Am I? You're not even 5 percent attracted to him?"

I held up my hands. "Of course I am.”

She grinned. "Aha. I knew it."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, Reese. You know that's true, very objectively speaking. But there are no sparks. I've been at odds with him since we hired him and he shot off that first email. Besides, after the disaster in Paris, I will never get involved with someone I work with again.Ever."

Her smile faded. "I'm sorry that was such a shitty experience, especially because you had to go through it alone, and you didn't have me to pamper you with sisterly advice and take you shopping."

"But now I'm back, and you can spoil me six ways from Sunday after every shitty date."

I'd dated my boss in Paris, and things seemed to be going okay—up until he went on vacation for a whole month and came back married. I lost most of faith in humanity right then and there. Then again, my sister had even shittier luck. She’d been engaged years ago and found out that her then-fiancé was sleeping with her best friend. I'd flown home right away and tried my best to comfort her, but she'd been inconsolable.

"We both have a knack for dating assholes," she said.

"Yes, that's another minus point in Drake's column. He’s an ass.”

“But he did save you from a bad date."

"Oh, Reese, you should have been there to see it. He was so full of himself."

"Icanpicture it because he seems to be the type.”

“Anyway, I wanted to ask you something else." I chose my next words carefully because I didn't want to alarm her. "Have you spoken to Tate lately?"

"Yeah, I went by his house yesterday evening after they came home from the doctor."

"You did?" I asked. "I thought about going, then figured they wouldn't want me crashing there."

Reese winked. "I don’t think they wanted me there either. But I was too worried. The baby's fine. Her fever went down soon after they gave her the medicine."

I sank lower in my chair, breathing out in relief. "That's good. God, I couldn't handle being a mom. I'm anxious every time I hear one of our nieces is sick. I couldn't imagine how uptight I'd be if it were my baby."

She gave me a sympathetic smile. "Tate says you never really get used to it."

“Very encouraging,” I murmured. "But why do I even think about stuff like this? I'm light-years away from having a family and kids."

"No, you're not," Reese said, standing up. "You're very putting yourself out there and going on dates."

"You know me. I'm nothing if not determined. And if you’re ready to jump into it, I do have a few good websites that screen people beforehand. For example, they ask you to upload résumés, double-check that the data fits, and so on. You can put all sorts of filters, like college degrees and things like that. I might have overdone those filters, and that's how I ended up being matched with Patrick. But I'm sure I'll have more luck next time," I said, grinning from ear to ear.

I liked the dating process. It was exciting—most of the time.

"One of these days, I hope to catch some enthusiasm from you. In the meantime, I wouldn't discard Drake too quickly."

I cleared my throat. "By all means, if you want to date him, go for it."

"I meant for you."

I shook my head. "Reese, don't start again."

"I'm not, but the sparks don't lie. Trust me, I saw them. You have them in spades, and I stand by every word."

"Whatever. Now, shoo. I need to start my workday, and I can't do it with you filling my head with all sorts of ideas."

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