Sweet Cheeks by K. Bromberg Page B

such a controlling bitch. And to think she was going to be my mother-in-law.”
    I feel her shiver beside me in mock disgust. Maybe she doesn’t still love him.
    “Do they actually think you’re going to hop on a plane and show up?” Shit . Let’s hope she’s had enough to drink that she doesn’t realize I knew she’d have to fly to get there.
    “That’s the thing—Whoa!” she says as she sits up quickly and then puts her hand down on my upper thigh to steady herself.
    “You okay?” I ask as she giggles.
    “I haven’t gone out drinking like this in quite a while, wow . . . this feels funny.” She sounds embarrassed.
    I clear my throat. Try to concentrate on the conversation instead of her hand on my thigh where her fingers are dangerously close to my dick. Focus on anything but that.
    “You okay?”
    She looks down at me: lips parted, eyes wide, and fuck if the look on her face—innocent, complicated, pure Saylor—doesn’t make me think of the pressure of her fingers again. “Yeah.” She swallows and nods. “I’m fine. Just caught me off guard.”
    “Okay.” I shift up. Figure that’s the best way to get her hand off my thigh. Try to be the good guy here. And the minute I move, she immediately jerks her hand back as if she didn’t realize it was there. Good thing her hand’s not on my thigh now. Bad thing? Bad thing is her lips are inches from mine.
    I smell her perfume. See the moonlight in her hair. Hear her draw in a breath. And hell if I don’t need a distraction from stepping over a line I can’t cross.
    The sway of her ass tonight at the club.
    The sound of her laugh as she climbed the steps up here.
    The way she went from fiery to cute in a goddamn second.
    Step back, Whitley. Way the fuck back.
    “You were saying something about being invited, Saylor?” Distraction . Get the conversation back on track. And my thoughts off of her lips.
    “Uh. Yeah.” She shakes her head as if to clear the moment we just had and reaches forward to pick up nothing in particular to have a reason to shift away from me. “Ryder’s lost his mind.”
    “And that’s something new?”
    I get the smile I was working for but this time it’s more shy than confident. She plucks at the legs of her pants with her fingers. I wait.
    “We both agree that Mitch sent the invitation as a kind of fuck you to me, but Ryder thinks I should play him at his own game. That I should accept the invitation and show up at the wedding. He believes the Laytons are badmouthing the bakery and that’s why it’s not doing too well. That they have enough pull with the people in this town, so now I’m like a pariah or something. I don’t know.” She shrugs and chews the inside of her cheek as she pauses for a moment. I can tell she’s hurt by the possibility that her brother’s assumption is true. The girl without a mean bone in her body. “He thinks if I were to stride into the wedding I walked away from and exude absolute confidence, like I knew for a fact that I had made the best decision ever by not marrying Mitch, it wouldn’t go unnoticed. In fact, he thinks that since it’s likely most of the guests have been told horrible things about me, seeing me so unaffected would make them curious. They’d wonder what I know about Mitch that they don’t, and curiosity might lead them to check out the bakery and—”
    “And curious people will come to the store and possibly generate business.”
    She looks at me, surprised I’ve come to the same conclusion as Ryder, and I cringe inwardly in case I’ve revealed too much.
    “So you think he’s right?”
    “I think there’s some merit to it,” I muse.
    “Why?”
    I think of Jenna. Of the burden I’m bearing to play a similar game all for image’s sake. And know if I am doing it for her, and how it could affect my career, I sure as shit will help Saylor if she asks. Now I just need to convince her of that.
    “Because I see it every day. Take an actress who breaks up