She snatched her hand away, hoping her shaking voice wouldn’t clue him in on her now-stuttering heart. “And speak slower. It might sound odd to your ears, but speaking calmly will put your audience at ease.” She intentionally slowed and softened her words. “And you’ll be more relaxed, too.”

She waited for him to argue or make fun, but he only blinked and watched her in the yellowish lantern light. “Thanks. That’s helpful.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.” Being the recipient of his gratitude was new territory. She shook off the urge to blush…and decided to lighten the mood with a subject change. “What are you worried about, anyway? We’re not going anywhere if we don’t find my car keys.”

But the mention of their predicament made the smile on her face turn sickly. She had searched the bedding and bags surrounding them. Marcus half-heartedly helped while whole-heartedly chowing down on her food. Neither of them had found a single sign of her missing keychain. It was like it had vanished into thin air.

“Just picture the audience in their underwear,” she said as she rifled again through her purse, which she’d hurriedly retrieved from outside.

“Will you be in the audience, Lil?” She snapped her head up to find Marcus leaning an elbow on one knee, a wry and damn sexy smile on his face. “Because as I recall, if I win this bet, you have to show up not wearing any…”

Her pulse raced against her throat, and she had to work extra hard to be offended. “I mean…” She shut her eyes to recalibrate her brain. “What I meant was, it’s easier to give a speech if you focus on talking to the people you know. Joanie or Clive…or me.” She returned to digging through her bag, reconsidering. “Or not me. Someone you like.”

“I like you.”

Her heart thudded. Such a simple sentiment, but for some reason, the words hit deep in her gut. Mostly, they teased, but when they worked together, when they had a task they shared, she liked him, too. He must have thought her twisted lips were a show of doubt, because he continued to argue his point.

“What?” He gave her a tender smile, a rarity, and her favorite from his arsenal of expressions. “I do.”

“Oh, okay.” She tossed her handbag aside and tried to get back onto familiar footing with him. “That explains the plastic spiders you’ve been hiding in my desk since we made this bet. Let’s see, one in my paperclips, one on top of my monitor…one on the glass of my scanner.”

“I heard you scream from the other side of the building.” He grinned, inordinately pleased with himself.

She shook her head. Marcus was a lot like having a bratty brother around. He dragged a hand through his cropped hair and chuckled, the flash of his white teeth offsetting the dark shadow of his jaw. Heat flushed her neck.

Maybe “brother” was a poor choice of word.

“I’m not exactly on your top-ten list, either,” he mumbled, leaning back on his forearms. The air-filled bed shifted, and she steadied herself with her hands. “Can’t even get you to act like my date at a company dinner without adding it to the stakes of a bet.”

Despite the easy smile on his face, he sounded almost hurt.

“I— It’s not that.” What was his angle, anyway? Why would he care if the stuffy redhead from work turned him down? His black book was likely thicker than both testaments of the King James Bible. “You’re the one who made it part of the bet rather than ask me outright.”

He pushed himself up and the air in the mattress shifted again, tipping his face close to hers. For a half second, she forgot to breathe. She wasn’t sure what gave him the allure. The casual way he wore his hair, the mischievous spark in his dark eyes, or the way the lantern lit his face, making him look like a boy and a man at the same time.

“I asked you out before. You said you didn’t date your coworkers.”

“I don’t. But that was before…before I knew you.”

He watched her for a few long, sweaty seconds.

She tried not to fidget.

“Would you have said yes if I had asked you recently?”

“You mean if you asked…” She licked her dry lips. “Just…asked?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

He blew out a laugh, his eyebrows jumping.

“I respect our working relationship too much to risk it,” she blurted. She did respect him, but that wasn’t the full truth. The truth was an ex-boyfriend had raked her over the coals. Emmett had used the fact that they’d shared a bed to promote himself and get her fabulously fired. She’d been the brunt of the workplace rumors that’d come with the relationship. Her ex had accused her of lacking ethics, and the pompous assholes running Lawson and Becker had believed him.

Not that she thought for one second Marcus would do the same…but at the time she had been stinging from that recent slap. She hadn’t even told him the real reason she left her former firm. So, yeah, back then, freshly wounded and freshly shit-canned, she’d taken one look at Marcus and concluded that the dark-haired, sexy beast asked out every girl within earshot. It wasn’t hard to guess they had all said yes. Every last one of them. She didn’t want to be one in a string of many. She’d had injuries to lick.

But now, looking at Marcus, she chewed on the side of her lip, wondering if she’d made too many assumptions about him. Assumptions that had stuck, despite her seeing clear evidence refuting them. Like the fact that yes, he used to date a lot when she started, but recently, his numerous dates had waned. He spent late nights at the office almost as often as she did. And when he came in Monday morning, it was he and Clive who talked about hanging out at the Shot Spot playing pool or darts. Hell, at last year’s RSD dinner, his date seemed more like an acquaintance he’d called in a favor with than a girl interested in him.

Huh. She hadn’t really thought about that before.

“You respect me. That’s a new one.” His downturned eyes threw her off. Had she ever seen this man with anything less than 110 percent confidence?

“You don’t need me to get through the dinner anyway,” she said, almost laughing aloud at the idea of him “needing” her for anything at all. The man was talent squared. “Everyone attending knows you’re ten times the designer they are.” That was the truth, and so was the next thing she said. “And you’re twenty times the designer I am on my best day.”

Chapter Seven

He waited for the punch line, but nothing came.

Lily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had cute ears.

“Like on the London store¸” she continued. “I sketched the interior of that building at least eighteen times, and I never once thought to position the POS stations throughout the store.”

“Yeah, innovative.”

“Exactly. It was.” She poked his knee with one finger.

The third time she’d touched him tonight. Interesting.

“I was being sarcastic.” Feeling uncharacteristically humble, he added, “Clive helped.”

“With the final layout. But he argued for the traditional placement of the cash registers lined up near the exit. You were the one who insisted customers would be more likely to make impulse purchases if they didn’t have to traipse to the front of the store to check out.”

He vaguely recalled the conversation she referenced. The discussion with Clive hadn’t been a heated one, and not one she should remember so vividly. Which meant she’d been paying attention to him, and he hadn’t even known. How about that? And here he thought all they had in common was that they disagreed on everything.

“You sound like you agree.” The two of them on the same side of an argument was new. Intriguing.

“I do.” She looked at her hands like she was embarrassed. Or maybe she wasn’t sure how to handle them on even ground. He could relate. Compliments weren’t their usual fare.