Dirty Deal (A Perfectly Matched Novel) (Entangled Brazen) Read Online Free PDF Page A

certainly not this woman, no matter how great her ass looked as she bent over to climb out of the car.
    He followed her out and hurried ahead to open the door to the restaurant for her. If he played his cards right, maybe he could even avoid that conversation altogether. A little wining and dining, and some of the old Metcalf charm, and she’d be too focused on him to think about anything else.
    He’d make sure of it.
    …
    Piece. Of. Cake.
    Serena had planned on doing whatever she had to in order to get the job done, but she had no idea it would be this easy. Bryan hadn’t taken his eyes off her the whole ride over, and damn if he had even bothered to try.
    So what if he didn’t believe in their service? She hadn’t either, at first. It was only after seeing Grace’s unerring tingles in action that she’d bought in. Even now, she wasn’t a total convert. Grace believed everyone had a match, but Serena knew better. Love wasn’t for everyone. Her own personal life was evidence of that. She preferred to keep her relationships short and to the point. Too bad a little short and to the point wasn’t on the menu with Dr. Metcalf tonight. Grace would kill her for muddying the waters with him, but she could sure use a physical.
    She bit back a grin and followed him into the little barn-style room. There sat only one table and two chairs on the wide-planked oak floor. A single candle lit the table, while twinkling lights created a charming ambience. Damn if that hospital crew didn’t know how to plan a date.
    There was even another bottle of champagne chilling beside their table. She walked toward it and hardly noticed that he was standing there, waiting for her, chair already pulled out.
    Nice.
    He popped open the bottle and poured some champagne into each of their glasses. By the time he sat, a waiter appeared, as if from nowhere, with their first course.
    “Roasted quail with a plum reduction.” The maître d’, all trussed up in a penguin suit with a fancy handlebar mustache to top it off, flourished a hand toward their dishes then turned on his heel and left.
    “They don’t joke around here.” She poked a finger at the toasted golden skin of the delicate bird, and her mouth watered. She’d grown up seeing food like this served to the men around her, but had been trained at an early age to look but not touch. Even now, after breaking free from the influence of her parents, she typically ate bran flakes from a box or super-bland foods like poached chicken breast and steamed veggies.
    Taste equals calories, Serena. Food is a necessity, not a pleasure.
    She shoved her mother’s tinny admonishment from her head, but still didn’t pick up a fork, focusing instead on Bryan.
    “Everything looks lovely.”
    “Yeah. This is one of my favorite places, actually.” Bryan was already tearing into the meat, and the juices glistened in the dim lighting like a still from a Food Network commercial.
    “Oh, you’ve been here before? So do the owners make all the employees dress that way? Like, do they provide fake mustaches if your natural one isn’t as glorious? And do they have casual Fridays where people don’t have to wear their monocles?”
    “Actually, they do. And they also have top hat Tuesdays.” Bryan gave her a crooked smile that could have charmed the habit off of a nun.
    What was it about guys with crooked smiles that was so damn appealing?
    “Good to know. Next time I come here, I’ll have to take mine out of storage.”
    “Will there be a next time? You’ve hardly touched your food.” He pointed his fork toward her plate.
    She hadn’t hardly touched anything. She simply hadn’t touched it at all.
    Everything from the crisp, roasted skin to the little pool of purple sauce that surrounded the quail practically screamed fattening .
    Still, watching Bryan tear into the meat like it was the most succulent thing he’d ever tasted had her stomach growling. Maybe one taste couldn’t hurt…
    She speared