“Now, let’s pretend that instead of running away, you’d stayed,” he said huskily. “Let’s pretend that you gave me a chance to do what I wanted to do in that taxi. Let’s say I asked you out. Can you envision it?”

“No,” she breathed. “No,” she repeated, louder this time. God, was she sweating?

“I would have said, ‘Have drinks with me. Say, Lambs Club? Thursday?’ ”

Grace found she couldn’t look away. His hand found hers, and his thumb was moving over her wrist just as it had in the cab that morning.

Damn, he was good.

But this was exactly why she’d accepted this gig. To show the world that she was good too. And nobody’s fool. Grace 2.0 gave her a little slap. Get back on track. He’s playing you.

Grace leaned in just the tiniest bit, savoring the way his eyes dipped briefly to her chest. “Let me guess,” she said. “That little thumb across the pulse routine lands the date nine out of ten times, am I right?”

His eyes flickered in confusion before they dropped to their joined hands, as though surprised to see that he was still touching her. But he recovered quickly. “My turn to guess. This is going to be the one time out of ten that I fail, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’ll go out with you again,” she said with a sassy little smile. “For work. The boss is insisting that we do at least five dates for this little charade.”

“Gee, I’m having a hard time containing my enthusiasm. You seem so enamored with me.”

Grace took a sip of her cocktail to avoid admitting that she just might be well on her way to being enamored. “So, Jake Malone. Tell me about yourself.”

“Thought you’d have it all figured out by now.”

“Oh, I do,” she replied. “But we’re supposed to be mimicking the real deal, remember? Your rules. Just pretend you’re interviewing me for the role of your bedmate or girlfriend.”

“The dress alone would have landed you the first one,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “But your personality is making it a little hard to envision the second …”

“Gosh, I can’t wait to get that in writing. You know, after I write this article, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if women are lining up around the block to get a date with you so they can be constantly insulted.”

“And my male readers will be leaving twenties on the dresser when they hear about that dress.”

“Twenties, Malone? Really? Surely this is more of a triple-digit kind of dress.”

He smiled at that and rolled his shoulders, as though prepping to get his head in the game. “Okay, so you want real first-date chatter, is that it? Here we go … I was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the only boy among four sisters, and you know what that means—”

“Gay?”

“Packers fan,” he continued, unperturbed. “And I suppose I was one of those pretentious, driven kids who knew what he wanted, even from a young age—”

“Herpes?”

Again he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “My eighth-grade teacher is really the one to blame. A couple buddies and I broke into the school one Saturday with the intention of stealing the third-grade class’s hamster. We got caught, naturally, but instead of standard detention, we were assigned to random extracurriculars, which was the newspaper for me. I got hooked.”

She couldn’t keep herself from smiling. The story was kind of … cute. She could totally picture a mini Jake Malone, all messy black hair and curious eyes, running around with one of those old-school reporters’ spiral notebooks. “What was it exactly that hooked you?” Grace asked. “The student council elections? Science fair coverage?”

Jake smiled back. “Nah, I was banned from the science fairs after sixth grade when I took that exploding volcano trick a little too seriously. My writing beat back then was mostly sports. Although my junior year in high school I did get to interview the mayor. After that, I kind of branched out. The sky was the limit and all that.”

“Mmm-hmm, and at what point did you start researching for your riveting article in last month’s Oxford? ‘Five Little Words That Get Any Woman into Bed’?”

Jake gave an unrepentant grin. “I’ll have you know, I had four of those words figured out by the time I graduated from University of Florida with a journalism degree. The girls there made excellent research subjects. The fifth one is a more recent discovery, though.”

“Do tell.”

“You didn’t read the article?”

She lifted her brows. “Have you ever read one of my articles?”

“I should have. Maybe then I’d have known who you were,” he muttered.

“What’s the fifth word?” she prompted.

Jake leaned forward just slightly, not enough to touch her, but enough so that she was leaning in to hear whatever he was going to say. Really, the man was good at this. Good at women.

“Cheese plate,” he said.

Grace blinked. “Cheese plate?”

“I know, I know … technically, that’s two words. But ‘Six Little Words That Get Any Woman into Bed’ didn’t have quite the same ring for the headline, and since ‘cheese plate’ really just refers to one concept, I gave myself a free pass.”

Grace stared at him. “That’s your secret word? ‘Cheese plate’? Good Lord, no wonder your readers are writing angry letters.”

“Not my readers, Ms. Brighton. It’s your readers sticking their noses into their husband’s magazine that’s causing all the ruckus.”

“Because you’re way off base.”

“Or,” he said, holding up a finger, “is it because I’m on base, and women hate knowing that they have such easy buttons to push?”

“The only women whose buttons get pushed by ‘cheese plate’ are dairy maids. So feel free to take that little tidbit of a sex tip of yours right on back to Wisconsin.”

“Now hold on,” he said, wiggling his finger in her face like an obnoxious schoolboy. “Do you like cheese plates?”

Grace bit the inside of her cheek in irritation. “Yes, but—”

“Do all of your friends like cheese plates?”

“Yessss …”

“And is said plate not the focus of many a girls’ night? Do you not stake out wine bars with cheese plates and those little dishes of weird olives?”

“Sure, but—”

“Cheese is the new chocolate,” he said smugly, sitting back as though he had just identified the solution to world hunger.

“Um, no,” she said, doing a little finger waggling of her own. “There is no replacement for chocolate.”

“A sweet tooth. Noted,” he said, batting her finger away. “But at least admit that if a guy suggested that you split a bottle of wine and a nice cheese plate on the third date, you’d be pleasantly surprised.”

“I … I don’t know,” she said, thrown off.

“See, that’s where guys always make their mistake,” he replied, shaking his head in dismay. “They think the third date still requires the full fancy-dinner routine. They suggest splitting an appetizer, then salads—because guys think all women want a side salad, and women let them think this. By this point both parties are well on their way toward full, but they order two big old entrees anyway. Then of course, there’s the dessert that she pretends she doesn’t want, and he pretends he does so he can feed her a bite … And then everyone’s too full to feel sexy. He’s dropped a ton of money and has just become like every other man who’s asked her out. Boring.”

Grace opened her mouth to counter. She couldn’t.

“But a guy who suggests a cheese plate?” he continued. “It’s simple, sexy …”

“Cheese is not sexy.”

“I’m not talking about the fake orange kind, or a bland block of on-sale mozzarella. I’m talking a sleek wood board with a nice chunk of manchego, maybe a bleu d’Auvergne … or a creamy cambozola … maybe a fresh baguette. Grapes too, if that’s your thing.”

Grace was appalled to realize that her mouth was watering.

She no longer had any doubt that a cheese plate did in fact get plenty of women into bed. But it wasn’t the cheese that got them there. Sure, the sentiment was nice. And she’d give him credit for observing that most women loved to nibble.

But that wasn’t the clincher.

No, Jake Malone himself was the clincher. It was all in the way he said “cambozola,” and the way he painted the picture of that shared cheese plate as though he would love nothing more than sharing it with the love of his life.

Jake wasn’t selling cheese, he was selling himself.

“Okay,” she said, giving a practical nod. “I’ll buy your little theory.”

He grinned. “I knew it.”

“If, if I can hear a balding, overweight whiner who lives with his mom pitch that cheese plate and still land the girl.”

Jake’s smile slipped slightly. “That’s not fair.”

Grace tsked and signaled for a refill on her drink. “Your advice only works for someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“Handsome. Fit. Overdosed on charm.”

“Yeah, I hear women hate all those qualities,” he said, feeling oddly stung by her disdain. Why he should want Grace Brighton to like him was beyond him, but it bothered him the way she so easily dismissed him as a specimen to be analyzed.

“But you get my point,” she continued. “You could suggest a couples colonoscopy, and women would probably agree. But your suggestions aren’t universal.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “And you’re telling me that your articles are universal? Let’s see, what are some of your more recent gems? Planning a steak night he’ll drool for … now Grace, did you ever think about all those vegetarians? Or what was that one you wrote about how couples who run together have better sex? That’s just not inclusive of people with joint problems or shin splints, now is it? Was that advice universal? Or let’s take your friend Julie, who makes it seem like the flipping of one’s hair is an art form. What about women with short hair? How are they going to learn that trick?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Thought you said you’d never read my articles.”

Jake gave a sheepish smile. “I may have done a little reconnaissance.”

She nodded once before doing a little backtracking of her own. “Okay, maybe I can admit that our respective articles don’t apply to all situations.”

He nodded, looking a little thrown off by her easy capitulation.

She hoped she was throwing him off. He was certainly throwing her off.

Even worse, she was sort of liking the guy. She’d known he was charming. Known he was confident.

But he was also genuine. A little bit funny.

More than that, he listened when she spoke. Greg had so often had that glazed-over expression on his face, and that’s when he hadn’t been blatantly interrupting her to order another drink.

“Your turn for the first-date spiel,” he said.

Uh-oh.

“I get one more question,” she said, stalling for time. “Tell me one thing about you that nobody else knows.”

“That nobody else knows?” He pursed his lips. “Don’t know that I have one of those. I’m not really a deep-dark-secret kind of guy.”

The admission had been off the cuff, but there was something in the way he said it—something that made her think he did have hidden depths but wasn’t about to let anyone near them.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Fine. Tell me something that almost nobody else knows. Something that’s not on your standard first-date script.”

He took a sip of his drink as he thought about it. “I hate the Yankees.”

She was oddly disappointed that his confession was so tame. “So you’re like, what … a Mets fan?”

“Not really. I’m more of a football guy, but I don’t hate baseball in general. Just the Yankees. It would take the apocalypse to get me to set foot into that stadium again.”

“Gosh, that sounds reasonable and mature. Any reason? Or just the usual stupid boy stuff?”

“I just can’t stand their uppity my-shit-don’t-stink routine. I’ve seen the whole organization up close, and it’s everything that’s wrong with sports today.”

“You know, don’t you, that there are millions of rabid Yankees fan who would probably have a heart attack at that perhaps unfounded statement?”

“Yup. You never said it had to be a reasonable confession.”

“Gotcha,” she said with an amenable nod. “I’m going to pretend I found all that interesting.”

For some reason that made him grin. “If I were to dig really deep, I might be able to say that I irrationally blame the Yankees for ruining a good thing in my life. Even though common sense tells me I made the decision all by my adult self.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “What did the big bad baseball team make you do?”

“Let’s just say they were the start of the derailment of my intended life trajectory.”

Grace whistled. “Deep.”

“Deep enough for a first date,” he said, looking pointedly at her. “It’s your turn.”

She took a deep breath. It had been a long, long time since she’d done this sharing shit.