“By walking down? I don’t think so.”

She crossed her arms, defensive. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes flashed guiltily, and he pulled on his earlobe.

“You’re avoiding me,” she said, her eyes going wide.

“No! No. I mean yes, but not avoiding you, just avoiding …”

Grace gave a relieved laugh. “Everything? Everyone? Me too. I thought you were going to Lucky’s.”

“Yeah, you were supposed to think that. What do you want to bet half the Oxford and Stiletto offices got a sudden craving for hamburgers today?”

“So you set up a decoy plan. Well done, Mr. Malone.” They began descending the stairs, Jake offering his arm so she didn’t wobble on her heels. She took it, surprised that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be holding on to Jake Malone in the stairwell while they hid from the world.

“I admit, I was thinking you’d probably be the first one to Lucky’s,” he said, glancing down at her as they made it to the fifth floor. “Most of the guys spent all morning trying to figure out what the next female wile was.”

“My hair,” Grace said, flicking her ponytail. “You’re not supposed to notice that it’s a half inch shorter. Or maybe you are supposed to notice? I can’t keep it all straight.”

“Well, chalk this one up to the voters with boobs, because there’s no way in hell I would have noticed your haircut.”

“What about me?” she asked. “What was my challenge for the day?”

“Sports. I was going to mention being a huge fan of a fictitious sports team to see whether you’d fake interest, or if you’d ’fess up and say that you’d never heard of such a team.”

“Kind of a risky plan, don’t you think?” She lowered her voice to a mock whisper. “What if one of them had found out you don’t like the Yankees?”

“You wouldn’t have told them,” he said confidently.

“I might have.”

“Nope.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How do you figure?”

“Because that little bit of information is something I told only you. And you want to keep it that way.”

Grace opened her mouth to dispute him. She couldn’t. “You know, I don’t know who planted the seed in your head that this whole cocky routine was charming, but they did you a disservice.”

“I planted that seed in my own head. But confess now, Gracie. If the boys had come to you with a fake sports team, would you have admitted you had no idea who they were? Or pretended you were a fellow fan?”

Grace pursed her lips as they made it to the second floor. “Probably confessed because I wouldn’t want to get caught in the lie later. But I don’t know. Maybe I would have faked that I knew what you were talking about. I hate feeling dumb, especially around you.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to think I was pretty comfortable with myself, but this whole thing has made me second-guess every action when I’m with you.”

“Even now?” she asked as they made it to the lobby floor and stopped.

“No.” His eyes searched hers. “Not now. This deeply romantic slow trot down the smelly office stairwell has been one of the best moments I’ve had in weeks.”

She scanned his face. He wasn’t lying. She was pretty sure of it.

“Me too,” she said quietly, reaching for the door handle so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She was too afraid about what might be written on her face.

His fingers gently touched the back of her hand and they both froze. She forced herself to meet his eyes, and she saw the same wretched torture on his face that had caused so many sleepless nights for her.

They were so in over their heads.

Unlike their previous two kisses, Jake moved slowly, one hand moving gently to her hip as the other slid behind her neck, tilting her face up to his. The kiss was sweet and teasing, the type of perfect kiss where the other person’s mouth feels meant for yours, their taste the best thing you can imagine.

Grace let her arms wind around his neck as she tilted her head and took the kiss deeper. Jake groaned and walked her back a step until she was pinned between him and the wall. She didn’t know how the kiss went from painfully sweet to painfully hot, but before she knew what had happened, her hands were pinned above her head, their lips and tongues fighting for dominance in a battle far more private—and far more vital—than the one they waged for the rest of the world to see.

When Jake finally lifted his head, he looked every bit as bewildered as she felt.

Just what the hell was going on here?

But exactly as it had before, the mask fell back into place, disguising any vulnerabilities, and Grace pushed aside the ridiculous urge to beg him to take a chance on her. On them.

Jake grinned then, looking very much like the confident, carefree guy she remembered from that fateful first cab ride. “So … where are we going to lunch?”

Chapter Fifteen

“You know, I get that we’re trying to escape prying eyes, but fleeing Manhattan might have been a wee bit excessive,” Grace said.

“Probably. But you said you were hungry, and Brooklyn has some of the best food in the city.”

“No argument there,” Grace said as she took another bite of her steak salad. “How’d you find this place?”

“Dated a girl a few years ago who lived around the corner. She got kind of crazy, but the food stayed good.”

“Exactly how many girlfriends have you had? Or do I want to know?”

Jake dunked a fry in ketchup and considered. “I’ve never really understood at what point a woman stops becoming someone you’re casually dating and actually becomes a girlfriend.”

Grace put an offended hand over her chest. “Clearly you haven’t been reading Stiletto. This is exactly the sort of thing we analyze. In detail.”

“No doubt. But to answer your question … I dunno. Maybe one true girlfriend? Lasted about four months?”

Grace grinned and stole a fry. “Seems to me that was my precise assessment of you that first day in the cab.”

“Weird. I wonder if there’s a trophy shop around here so we can get you a little memento to savor your lone victory.”

She just grinned at him before grabbing another fry.

“What about you?” he asked. “Nothing serious before or after the cheating douche bag, right?”

“Well, it’s only been four months. Long enough to move on, but not long enough to get back in the saddle. Not that I want to. And before Greg, there were a couple dance dates and kisses in high school, but Greg … he was the one, you know?”

“Obviously not.”

“Obviously,” Grace muttered.

He was watching her. “Do you miss him?”

Grace chewed thoughtfully. Did she miss Greg? “I miss … someone,” she said finally. “I know this probably sounds like I’m single-handedly rolling back the women’s movement, but I liked taking care of someone, you know? Being that other half?”

“Would you take him back if he asked?”

She hated this question. Didn’t even ask it of herself. She wanted to say no. Grace 2.0 pretty much demanded that she tattoo no on her bicep. But the other part of her … the romantic part of her wondered about forgiveness.

Couples did come back from infidelity. People did forgive.

She just didn’t know if she was one of them.

And then there was the even more alarming fact that she was thinking about Greg less and less lately. The fact that she was no longer even remotely sure that he’d been the love of her life.

“Can I pass on that one?” she said.

Jake’s jaw tightened briefly, and she thought she was about to get the lecture on how Greg was garbage.

Instead he gave her a half smile. “Sure.”

Grace thought about protesting when Jake ordered a chocolate torte for them to split, but whom was she kidding? She had a weakness for dessert.

A weakness for dessert? 2.0 taunted. Or a weakness for Jake?

If she was honest, this lunch was the best time she’d had in a long while. She and Jake had all of the easy comfort that she and Greg had once had, but unlike in conversations with Greg, she never found herself tuning out when Jake spoke.

She tried to tell herself it was probably just a function of Jake being new. Maybe she and Greg had simply reached that level of familiarity where it was okay to tune out the other person once in a while.

But she couldn’t ever remember laughing this much with Greg, or so easily sharing every thought that came into her head, no matter how random.

Not even at the beginning.

Jake held out a bite of dessert across the table, and she hesitated before taking it, her eyes scanning the room, automatically wondering how the gesture might be interpreted. Too interested? Too clichéd?

His gaze shadowed briefly. “There’s no one here, Grace. Just me.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember we’ve both played that line before, only to have the private moment all over the blogosphere,” she said before neatly cleaning the bite of torte off the fork.

“Not all private moments,” he said, taking a bite for himself. “Neither one of us has made those kisses public. Why do you think that is?”

“Because we agreed not to?”

“Try again.”

Because it’s too special.

But she didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t want to be wrong. Not about this.

“Because it was real,” he said. “We may be trying to trip each other up all over the place these past few weeks, but even though we both want to win, we know some things are sacred.”

Then why haven’t you tried to take it beyond kissing? 1.0 wanted to ask.

Jake had definitely not been beating down her door to get into her pants. Which was polite, and gentlemanly, and totally depressing.

Just once she wanted to be that woman that drove men crazy. She wanted to be the irresistible sexy one, not the nice, classy one.

She’d told that to Greg once. She’d had one too many glasses of chardonnay and confessed that she sometimes she wished her life was just a little bit messy, the sex something other than vanilla.

He’d just given her a small smile before taking away her wineglass and tucking her into bed.

The next morning she continued being the one whom people consulted about bridal shower gifts and who received lovely but generic jewelry for her birthday.

“You like beer?” Jake asked.

“What?” Grace asked, not at all following his train of thought.

“There’s a brewery up the road. They give tours and have a nice little tasting area.”

“You’re inviting me to a brewery tour?”

Jake laughed. “You can say no, Grace.”

“No! I mean yes! Yes, I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged. “I mean, don’t expect me to wow the tour guide with all my beer knowledge, or buy a case or anything, but yeah … that sounds fun.”

His mouth tilted up as he signaled for the check. “I bet nobody’s ever asked you to play hooky before, huh?”

The playful question was too close to the thoughts that had been spiraling through her mind just seconds before, and she heard herself answering too seriously.

“Nobody has. And I like it.”

He looked at her then, really looked at her, his eyes understanding.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, trying to break the moment. “I’m so not ha**g s*x with you just because you take me to some rinky-dink beer tour.”

The cocky grin returned immediately. “I don’t recall asking, Ms. Brighton, but believe me, this little thing we have will end with us in bed one way or the other.”

Grace felt her heart drop to her stomach before it soared back up and lodged in her throat.

“You think so?” She was trying for coy, but instead it came out sultry.

He stood and extended a hand for hers. “Count on it.”

Chapter Sixteen

Though they’d never explicitly talked about it, neither one of them wrote about that day in the stairwell.

The lunch, the brewery tour … the casual night that had followed, with them sharing a pitcher of beer and playing pool.

Nobody knew about it.

It was theirs alone, and even though 2.0 was pissed about it, Grace tucked it away in a little part of her labeled Happy Memories.

Not that the shenanigans on the website had ceased. There were more followers than ever, their reader base ever more vocal. In an effort to appease their “fans,” Grace and Jake did lunch together more regularly, often followed by lingering coffee breaks in the afternoon.

More often than not, they had an audience of some kind.

More often than not, Grace forgot about the audience.

And she suspected he did too.

Which was not to say they were shirking their duties. They took plenty of good-natured swipes at each other on the website. He’d sent her a picture of him in his briefs, knowing full well she’d put it on the website.

She had.

And when she’d “accidentally” flashed her thigh when getting up from a booth at a local restaurant, she’d known he’d rant on the blog about how it was the oldest trick in the female playbook.

Neither of them had spoken about his threat/promise about them sleeping together. But it was there, between them. Looming closer.

And despite the fact that she still adamantly waved her six-month sabbatical in Julie and Riley’s faces whenever they tentatively suggested she try going on a real date, she was no longer sure that Jake was wrong.