Playing Her Cards Right: Choose Me. Jo Leigh

soda or juice wherever we are, although you’ll be surrounded by booze.” He filled her glass, careful what with the stop-and-go traffic. “If you tell me what you prefer, I’ll make sure you have it.”

      “I like pineapple juice the best,” she said, taking the glass from him with her slender hand, her nails trim and shiny and pale.

      “Pineapple it is.” He poured himself a glass then sat back, lifting the flute to hers. “To blind dates.”

      Her smile did nice things to her face. Made it clear she hadn’t learned to hold back yet, to equate cynicism with sophistication. He hadn’t seen that in a long while. Not up close.

      “To extraordinary things,” she replied, clicking his glass gently.

      The champagne was excellent, perfectly cold and just dry enough. “Tell me about yourself, Bree,” he said, leaning back into his corner of the seat. He didn’t want to crowd her or make her uncomfortable. They had a big night ahead of them, and as long as she was his date, he truly wanted to show her a good time. Nothing extravagant, naturally. Experience had taught him it was better to stay low-key with new people of any stripe. Since the success of Naked New York, he’d had to relearn public navigation.

      His celebrity could still be an awkward fit, although nothing like it had been when the business had hit critical mass. He’d set out to make a name, but when he’d first put the blog plan together, he envisioned himself more like a Jason Weisberger of BoingBoing than an Arianna Huffington. Someone whose name would be recognized by people who mattered, but who was not easily recognized in person. Instead, he’d become part of a new phenomena. In Manhattan, more people recognized him than recognized the mayor. Financially, it was the best thing that could have happened. Personally, it had been … interesting and not terrifically pleasant.

      Bree turned her lovely green eyes to her glass, watching the bubbles pop and fizz. “I’m a copywriter,” she said. “At BBDA. A baby copywriter, which means I’m mostly a gofer and I take a lot of notes, type a lot of memos. But it’s good. The people I work with are quick and creative and they aren’t out for blood. Well, not more than you’d expect.”

      “BBDA is a big firm. A number of their clients advertise on my blogs.”

      Her eyes widened again. “Seventeen of them, at the moment. Naked New York is a major focus in the eighteen-to-thirty-four demographic.”

      The last word had been bitten off, and she pressed her lips together for a second. “Anyway,” she said, her voice lower, slower. “I graduated last year with an MBA from Case Western. I’d always wanted to come to New York, so I did.”

      “Is New York what you thought it would be?”

      “Much better. I loved it even before tonight.”

      He laughed.

      “Come on, you have to know how much this evening is blowing the bell curve. You’re Charlie Winslow and we’re going on a mystery date, and even though I have no idea where, I’m sure it’s going to be the most thrilling night of my life.”

      He couldn’t help his wince, although he tried not to. “Most thrilling? That’s a tall order.”

      She lowered her head, frowned a bit, then looked up at him through her long lashes. “Really? This—” she waved at the lush interior of the car, at, he imagined, the night in general “—is insane. It may be your day-to-day, but it’s certainly not mine.” Bree sat back, sipped the cold champagne. “Rebecca wouldn’t tell me. Every time I asked why you’d want to go out with me on Valentine’s night, for God’s sake, she smiled in that smug way that made me want to pinch her.”

      He smiled. “You know, I find myself wanting to pinch Rebecca a lot.”

      “Then you’ll understand my frustration when I ask you straight-out, why are we doing this? Why are you doing this with me? I can’t help thinking it might be some awful mean-girl prank. That wherever we’re going, there’ll be a big spotlight on me when I’m covered in green slime or something. Which would be horrible by the way. In case you need to call ahead.”

      Okay. She made him laugh. Big point in the plus column. And now that she’d admitted her fear, she seemed more relaxed. Now that he’d noticed, he lingered on the way her simple sleeveless dress showed off the woman more than the garment. He liked that she wore no jewelry. It was a bold choice, but it brought his focus to her neck, which had more appeal than a neck had any right to. There was just something about her skin, the way her chin curved, her elegant clavicle. There was a thought he’d never expected to have.

      “Rebecca isn’t like that,” Bree said, softer now, more to herself than him, and Charlie remembered she’d asked him why he’d pursued the date.

      Before he could answer, she added, “I haven’t known her for long, so maybe I’m wrong, but my instincts are pretty good, and she stood out right from the start.” Bree used her hand again, not a wave this time, but a flip of the wrist. A tiny wrist, delicate and feminine.

      “We went for drinks this one night at Caracas, Rebecca and me and our friend Lilly, who teaches music at this amazingly exclusive prep school, and it started out a little weird, because the three of us only knew each other from the lunch exchange, but then we started talking and we clicked, especially Rebecca and me. When I mentioned how desperately I’d wanted to live in Manhattan, both of them completely got it. How I don’t mind paying a fortune to live in the Black Hole of Calcutta with four girls I barely know, and how I can’t even afford to go to a movie, let alone have popcorn. They grinned and we toasted each other with sidecars, and I felt as if I was home.” Bree blinked and then for some reason her shoulders stiffened again. She cleared her throat. “That may have gotten away from me a little.”

      And … he liked her. Just like that. No, she wasn’t his type, not even close, but he liked the cadence of her speech, the way she talked with her hands, how she was clearly nervous but not cowed. The night changed right then, between Columbus Avenue and West 61st.

      Charlie touched her arm. She was warm and soft, and she flinched a bit at the contact, catching herself with a breath and a smile.

      “No,” he said, “it’s not a prank or a trick. Rebecca thought we’d get along. She and I grew up together, were friends through private schools and first dates and proms and way too many horrific holiday celebrations.” He shuddered thinking about some of the epic Christmases, the ones where half the family wasn’t speaking to the other half, where feuds were conducted across air-kisses and designer wreaths. All that passive-aggressive power brokering over Beluga caviar and shaved truffles. “She knows me as well as anyone. And she’s never wanted to set me up before.” “So what does that mean?”

      He thought for a second. Excellent question. “I don’t know.”

      Instead of pressing him for his best guess, Bree’s head tilted fetchingly. “Where are we going?”

      “You don’t want to be surprised?”

      The way she looked at him made him want to meet her expectations, even though there was no way he could. “I’ve been stunned since you took my hand.”

      Stunned? “What were you expecting?”

      She shrugged. “Not sure. Something else. I mean, I’m not shocked about the doormen, the limousine or how amazing you smell, because I was secretly hoping for all that. I’ve never been around celebrities much. I’ve seen some since I’ve been here. The obligatory Woody Allen sighting, of course, but there’ve been others. Quite a few of them, now that I think about it, but they’ve all seemed, I don’t know, extraordinary. In the truest sense of the word. As if the air around them was sparkly, or that even if they looked like they’d thrown on a potato sack and bowling shoes, it was on purpose, but I wasn’t cool enough to get it. You’re not like that.”

      “Is that a compliment?”

      She nodded. “Yes. It would have been okay if you’d turned out to be a major hipster, although I definitely