Third Chances (Men Of Manhattan #2) - Ivy Smoak Page 0,68

see what that has to do with me?"

"I called her infuriating. Daphne called you infuriating. She's going to fall in love with you. Just like I fell in love with Penny."

Something in my chest seemed to tighten.

"Maybe she already is in love with you. When you know, you know. You know?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I know." But I didn't. I had never been in love before. Hell, I had never even made love before. I was good at fucking. That was it. Emotion wasn't part of that for me.

"She's a keeper," James said to the ceiling.

It was possible that he was talking about Penny, but it seemed like he was still referring to Daphne.

A knock on the door made me jump.

James immediately sat up. "Food!" He laughed. "The way she ordered dinner was kind of weird though. That'll take some getting used to."

I laughed. "Yeah, that was kind of strange." But I secretly liked that she knew what she wanted. Especially if she wanted me. I opened up the door and smiled. Daphne was standing there with three takeout containers. She also had James' suit jacket draped over her arm and his tie in her hand.

I couldn't help myself. If I let her in this room, God help me, I wasn't going to be able to resist tying her up with that tie. I had already warned her what I liked to do with ties. If she walked in, she was basically giving me consent.

"I don't mean to intrude, I just thought you might need some help," she said. "Or want some company. Can I come in?"

I stepped to the side. I wasn't going to try to talk her out of it.

Chapter 23

Daphne

I never did stuff like this. I didn't know either one of these men. For all I knew they were both terrible people and I shouldn't be alone with them. But one look at Rob made me happy I had come. I was feeling reckless. I wanted to throw all caution to the wind. I wanted to experience him. He was staring at the tie in my hand. I smiled and placed it into his hand. "I believe this is your brothers. And this." I gave him the suit jacket too and put the takeout containers on the table.

My eyes landed on James on the bed. He was smiling. At least Rob had cheered him up. But he needed to drink more water to flush out his system. It was a good thing I had come.

"I'm going to go grab some waters from the store downstairs."

"We can just use the ones out of the mini bar."

"No, they jack those prices up. It's half the price if I go pick some up."

Rob smiled. "It's fine. Really." He grabbed three bottles out of the fridge.

I felt my cheeks flush. Of course it was fine. He was rich. I turned away, hoping to hide my embarrassment, and opened up the containers of food. The waiter had been nice enough to give us plastic forks and knives. I pulled them out of their plastic wrapping and set them down on top of the napkins.

"Thanks for this, Daphne," Rob said as he tossed me a water.

"Of course." I looked up at him. My eyes wandered to his mouth again. I knew what it suggested that I had come to his room. His friend Mason had joked around with me when I asked for their room number. Surely Rob was thinking the same thing. But I wanted to spend more time with him. We were adults. We could control ourselves, couldn't we?

"This looks fantastic," James said and sat down at the table.

I looked away from Rob. Of course we could control ourselves. And we kind of had to. Right now his brother needed us. I opened up one of the water bottles and handed it to James.

"Your friend drugged me."

I laughed. "Kirsten does have a crush on you, but she doesn't do drugs. At least not hard drugs. She's a competitive athlete. She'd get kicked off the team."

He looked at the bottle. "You were sitting next to me." He lowered his eyebrows slightly as he looked at me.

I wanted to laugh, but he looked so serious. I turned to Rob for help.

"It wasn't Daphne," Rob said.

"If you say so." He took a sip from his water bottle. "So, you guys like each other?"

"Dude." Rob put his face in his hand, clearly embarrassed.

I laughed. "How about you eat your food?" That would help too. Whatever he