The Ivy House - By Drea Stein Page 0,34

carry off skinny jeans if he had to. One of Chase’s thighs would barely fit into Dean’s jacket.

“Want another?” Chase nodded towards Phoebe’s glass. She looked down, realizing it was more than half empty. She’d been drinking fast, probably because she was nervous. Chase’s pint was almost gone.

“I really shouldn’t…”

“But you will,” Chase said, waving his hand, and the bartender appeared almost instantly.

“Hey Paulie, we’ll have another round.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Paulie flashed a quick smile and was gone.

“Boss?”

Chase shrugged. “I’m sort of a regular.”

“Will you and the lady want something to eat?” Paulie had returned with their drinks.

Phoebe was about to protest that it wasn’t a date, when Chase spoke up. “We’ll have a plate of the calamari and salad to start.”

“I thought this was just drinks,” Phoebe pointed out, annoyed that he had ordered for her.

Chase shrugged. “Shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. Besides, their calamari is pretty good. Unless, you don’t like squid?”

“Is it fried?” Phoebe asked.

“Of course.”

“Fine, I’m in. But this isn’t a date.”

“Who said it was? Maybe you have a boyfriend. Maybe I have a girlfriend.” He said it casually enough, but she could see that he was waiting for the answer.

“I’m not involved with anyone at the moment.” Phoebe thought of Garrett and wished she hadn’t. And then she thought of Dean. Good old reliable Dean, who was always trying to help her and her career. He had told her he would always be there, but she needed to ignore that if she was going to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.

“Even better,” Chase said and she felt the pressure of his hand along the back of her chair, as he smiled roguishly down at her. Roguishly…where had that even come from? Who did that? It was almost predatory, as if he were sizing her up, seeing how she would taste. Phoebe felt her body tingle with attraction, a rush of heat between her legs, while her brain screamed no, no, no. So, she followed her brain and moved her shoulders around to give him the hands-off message, while her hands tightened around the stem of the wine glass.

“Besides swimming and making pillows, what else do you do?” Chase asked, his arm steadily in place. Phoebe stopped trying to shrug it off, realizing that he was too solidly built for her to get him to move it.

“I’m a designer. For a while, I worked with at Shelby Hill, the furniture catalog, and then I went freelance. I’ve designed movie sets, posters, then I did a lot of work for Doran Industries.”

Chase nodded. “You mean the people who take a celebrity’s name and slap it on a bunch of stuff and sell it in the big-box stores.”

Phoebe smiled thinly. She didn’t think that’s how CallieSue Owens would like to describe her newest business venture, but that was pretty much what it was.

“Pretty much.”

“But not anymore?” he asked.

“No, I stopped when Savannah got really sick, to help look after her. And now, there seems to be a lot of loose ends to wrap up, so I am not sure what I am going to do.” Phoebe had her plan, but she wasn’t quite ready to share it with Chase at the moment.

“That was nice of you. Hard for someone your age to give up her social life and career for a dying relative.”

Phoebe gave a thin smile. “Savannah raised me. We were all each other had. It wasn’t hard at all to take care of her.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ there,” Chase said, his dark eyes holding a connection to hers. Something warned her not to give too much away, but the way he was looking at her, his attention fully on her, compelled her to be honest.

“There’s no ‘but.’” Phoebe thought about all she had found when sorting through Savannah’s affairs. And then she shrugged. It didn’t really matter, so she told him.

“Well, after I was around, I started to take a closer look at things. Her papers, bills. I wasn’t snooping, at least not at first. She needed someone to handle all of that stuff.”

“Of course,” Chase nodded in encouragement.

“I should have stepped in a lot sooner.”

“Really?”

“Savannah was pretty good at making money, but sucked at holding onto it. She managed to spend just about all of hers.”

“What did you do?”

Phoebe laughed at the memory. Savannah had been in bed then, in and out of it, the cancer moving quickly through her body. Phoebe had been so angry with her, she had