She was falling in love with Adam Riley.
Problem was, she seriously doubted he’d ever allow himself the freedom of returning her love.
Chapter Thirteen
“You sure you’re up to this?” Lexi paused just outside the restaurant.
He smiled. “I think I can handle it.”
She bit her lip, uncertain. “They’re gonna ask questions, you understand?” If she could’ve cancelled the dinner plans, she would have.
“We’ll answer them.”
She wasn’t convinced. “They’re persistent.” Damn persistent. Leona had insisted she come tonight.
He laughed out loud. “We’ll do fine.”
“You don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well…okay then. I suppose.”
“Lexi, it’s dinner, not the Spanish Inquisition.”
It might as well have been. Lexi was a bundle of nerves. She hadn’t told Daniel about Adam. What would she have said?
Oh, by the way, I accidentally slept with your friend a few weeks ago?
She hadn’t told Leona either, for the same reason.
Lee—remember how I said I didn’t meet Mr. Riley at the conference? Well…actually…
There’d be a deluge of questions at dinner. How would she deal with them? Should she just come out with it and tell them all she’d fallen crazy, head-over-heels in love with him? Tell them that their spontaneous weekend away had been so incredible she had no choice? Tell them that Adam had bared his soul to her and she’d given him hers in return? Probably not. She’d probably need to tell Adam all of that first.
Maybe she’d just keep quiet and see where the conversation led.
“Come on then,” she said, resigned to her fate. “Let me introduce you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Daniel stood as they reached the table, and shook Adam’s hand. “Lex, AJ. Good to see you.” He looked at Lexi with a raised eyebrow before introducing Adam to Amy, Leona and her partner, Annie.
Amy smiled at him. “I remember you from our wedding. Is that where you and Lexi met?”
“No. We met in Melbourne, actually.”
“You did?” Leona shot Lexi a surprised look.
“Well, uh, we kind of bumped into each other there. I tripped and AJ caught me before I fell on my face. I just didn’t know he was the man I’d been looking for.”
Amy’s eyes danced. “All your life?”
“No.” She shot her sister-in-law the evil eye. “Just for the last six weeks.”
Amy bit her lips and tried unsuccessfully not to smile.
“Why were you looking for him?” Daniel asked.
“She wanted money,” Leona supplied helpfully.
“For what?” Annie asked.
“The sibling program.”
The four of them nodded in understanding.
“So,” Amy thought aloud. “You’d been looking for a man you’d never met before to ask him for money.”
“That sounds like my sister,” Daniel said. “She’s not shy, is she?”
Adam’s smile was unmistakable. She just knew he was picturing her naked on the trunk of his car, diddling herself. “No,” he agreed, “she’s not shy at all.”
Heat crept into her cheeks.
“I hope she asked nicely,” Leona said to Adam. “She’s been known to shoot her mouth off.”
“Yeah, I noticed that about her,” Adam said as he pulled a chair out for Lexi. “To her credit, she did ask nicely. Very nicely indeed.”
“Should I just leave the table so you can talk about me in private?” Lexi asked.
“No need,” Daniel assured her, “we can talk just as easily with you here.”
Lexi humphed and sat beside Amy.
“So, AJ, how did she convince you to give her the money?” Leona wanted to know.
Adam took the seat on Lexi’s other side. “Let’s just say she knew which strings to pull to get me to agree.” Under cover of the tablecloth, away from inquisitive eyes, he placed his hand on her thigh, reminding her of the strings they’d discussed in his office.
As if she needed reminding.
“Yeah, she’s good at that,” Daniel commiserated. “Talked me into doing the exhibition in about two minutes flat.”
“Hey, don’t complain,” Lexi warned Daniel as Adam massaged her just above the knee. “The exhibition was a great opportunity for your career.”
Daniel looked at Amy. “I’m not complaining. The exhibition was a great opportunity, period.” The two of them shared an intimate, sexy smile.
The same kind of smile that Lexi and Adam had shared at sunset in the mountains. He was thinking of it, too. She knew because he squeezed her thigh gently and smiled at her.
“Were you at the exhibition, AJ?” Annie asked.
“I was. But not for long.”
“Long enough to buy a few photos,” Daniel said.
Amy leaned in close and without disrupting the conversation, said softly to Lexi, “He’s hot.”
“I know.” Hot with a capital H.
“I watched the two of you at the wedding.”
“You did? Why?”
“You were arguing.”
“You noticed that?”
“Sparks flew all over the place, Lex. It was hard not to notice.”
Shit. So much for trying to be discreet.
“From where I stood, I figured the argument would end one of two ways. You were either gonna kill him or sleep with him.” Amy grinned. “My money was on the latter.”
“Your money?”
“Yeah. Dan and I discussed it on honeymoon. We took a bet.”
“You took a bet,” she repeated, a little stunned. Her brother and sister-in-law had not only discussed her and Adam, they’d taken a bet about them.
Daniel leaned over his wife and whispered, “I bet you’d kill him. I had ten bucks riding on it.”
Lexi shook her head in wonder. “You had nothing better to do on your honeymoon than make wagers on my sex life?”
Daniel grinned. “Oh, we found a minute or two to do other things.”
“Hey what are you being so secretive about over there?” Leona asked.
“Amy and Daniel were just telling me how they…struggled to find anything constructive to do on their honeymoon,” Lexi answered.
“Oh yeah,” Annie said with a laugh, “there’s a real dilemma for you.”
“Where did you go?” Adam asked as he brushed his hand along Lexi’s thigh.
“Hayman Island,” Daniel answered
Lexi couldn’t suppress the delicious shiver that danced across her leg.
“I believe it’s beautiful there,” Adam said.
“Paradise,” Amy agreed.
Paradise was right under the table.
“Do you have any pictures?” Adam dragged his thumb dangerously close to the juncture of her legs.
“Not one,” Daniel said. “Amy wouldn’t let me bring my camera.”
Good grief, he wasn’t going to touch her here, in public, was he?
“Hey,” Amy said, “if you’d brought it along I wouldn’t have seen you the entire time. I had to protect my…interests.”
Lexi breathed a sigh of relief—or regret, she wasn’t entirely sure—as Adam’s hand slid back to her knee.
“Trust me,” Daniel told Amy, “I only ever had your best interests at heart.”
Leona whistled. “I just bet you did.”
As everyone laughed, Amy leaned in close again and whispered to Lexi, “So, did I win?”
“Wouldn’t you love to know,” Lexi whispered back. If Amy pushed the tablecloth aside right now, she’d have her answer. She swallowed a low moan as Adam tickled her inner thigh.
“I know already. You’ve got the look of a woman who’s been good and truly—”
“Oy. That’s enough,” Lexi cut her off with a snort. The only reason she had that look was because Adam’s hand was sending thrills racing through her belly. “What are you being so nosy for anyway?”
“Call it payback.” Amy smiled sweetly.
“For what?”
“Attacking Daniel with a cricket bat.”
“What?” Lexi shrieked.
Conversation around the table ceased. Even Adam’s hand stilled.
“You attacked Daniel with your cricket bat. Remember?”
“Well, bloody hell. I did no such…oh…” Lexi’s voice trailed off. Oh. Whoops. How could she deny it?
“You did what?” Adam asked, shocked.
“Beat up my husband,” Amy supplied helpfully.
“You weren’t married,” Lexi argued.
“Yet,” Daniel added.
“What do you mean ‘yet’? If I hadn’t…hadn’t told Amy I’d attacked you, you still wouldn’t be married.”
“My point exactly,” Amy said with a self-satisfied smile. “You butt in. I butt in.”
“Butt in? You needed me. Hell, someone had to knock a bit of sense into you.”
“So you hit Daniel with a cricket bat?” Adam asked, sounding mildly dazed.
“No,” Lexi denied. Christ, at this rate he’d wind up thinking she was an axe murderer or something. “I didn’t. I just, um, kind of told Amy I did.”
“What for?”
“He made me do it.” She pointed at Daniel, who sat grinning at all of them.
Adam looked at Daniel. “You did?”
“Didn’t have a choice really,” Daniel said.
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t interested in him,” Amy said.
“So Lexi had to beat Daniel up to get you to like him?”
“Pretty much,” Daniel said.
“It was all a cleverly master-minded plan,” Amy explained. “Daniel thought I took his friendship for granted. He wanted to shake me up a bit, get me to see I couldn’t live without him.”
“Which you can’t,” Daniel added.
“He got Lexi to phone and tell me he’d…um…accidentally been attacked. Needless to say, I nearly passed out from shock and had to race right over to see if he was okay.”
“Yeah, and to nurse me back to health.”
“And the rest, as they say, is history.” Amy smiled.
“So you’re saying you couldn’t have gotten together without Lexi’s help?” Adam asked.
“Or Leona’s,” Amy added.
“Leona?”
“Yeah,” Leona said. “Danno thought a little jealousy was a good thing, so he and Lexi cooked up some story about me wanting to jump his bones. Thought it would make Amy jealous of me.”
“It did,” Daniel interjected with a triumphant smile.
“Yeah. Until I found out the truth.”
“That the only bones Leona wants to jump…” Adam’s eyes rested on Annie.
“Are mine,” Annie said with a grin.
“I didn’t find out that little tidbit until much later,” Amy said.
“I had to tell her the truth eventually,” Daniel said.
“Actually,” Annie said with a mysterious smile, “you weren’t the one who told Amy about us.”
“What?” Daniel looked stunned.
Amy studied her nails.
“She found out quite independently of you,” Leona added.
“She did?” Lexi demanded. She hadn’t known that.
“Yes. She read it in our case file,” Annie said.
“What file?” Lexi asked.