The Dating Game (Alphalicious Billionaires) Read online

  Alex. It was a non-descript kind of name. An easy name. Casual. Probably a shortened name. She liked the idea of having a name you could actually shorten. Like Alexander. That was nice. Not Muffy. Because that shortened down to Muff and Muffy was by far bad enough.

  Her stomach was doing that rocky tossing deal that usually ended up with her dinner coming back up, but since she hadn’t eaten dinner yet- obviously- or much of anything else all day, the sloshing stayed down where it belonged.

  Alex had nice pictures. He looked like a decent guy. His profile was well written. It was actually Carla who found him and messaged him, of course, but Muffy had to admit that maybe he wasn’t going to be such a rotten apple. Which was good. Good for Carla. She was on date two of the three she promised her BFF that she’d try and God, the first one was as terrible as the tree climber dude. The guy, Shawn, was a lawyer. He was obviously super high on himself, which was disappointing because he really hadn’t come off that way online.

  Why can’t anyone just be normal in person? Muffy felt like they suckered a person in on the internet and sent someone in their place who looked and sounded nothing like them. Apparently, manners were something that people didn’t bother with anymore. Basic common sense was another attribute that belonged to a forgotten era.

  Muffy picked at the napkin that held the utensil cluster together. Maybe this wasn’t going to be any better. She’d done the dinner thing again but hoped she at least made it to the part where the food came so if she was going to dine and dash, she could at least do the dining part of the routine too.

  She purposely didn’t check her phone. She’d arrived early because she didn’t want Alex to be sitting there waiting, wondering if she was going to show up. She wanted to be the one to see him walk in, to see what she’d really gotten herself into.

  When she glanced up to check the front area of the restaurant, for the hundredth millionth time, the sloshing in her stomach turned into a flight of angry birds, all battling each other for a stale bread crust some well-meaning old lady threw out in the park.

  Alex.

  He looked exactly liked his photos. Tall and stacked, broad shoulders, athletic form, tousled dark hair and square jaw that had a permanent shadow of a beard. He had the kind of face that belonged on an outdoorsman’s poster. The kind where the guy wears plaid and heaves a big ax over his shoulder and winks at the camera while his curly mustache proudly shouts that he’s a real man’s man.

  Okay, so Alex didn’t have a mustache. He didn’t have any facial hair minus the shadow thing going on, but he just had that rugged look. He was a few inches over six feet. He probably played football in high school. He filled out that plaid shirt he did have on and the faded jeans that hung low on his hips more than well.

  He was the kind of guy who probably had a big d-

  Okay. So not going there.

  Muffy cut off her train of thoughts and gave herself a stern lecture about the buzz that was going on in her nipple region and the fire spreading up her thighs. She pinched her legs together so that it couldn’t reach the intended target. Seriously? I’m just as bad as all those perverts I went on dates with. Because, yeah, she could kind of imagine greasing Alex up and climbing him like a tree.

  Alex spotted her near the front and flashed her one of those perfect smiles. Perfect because his lips- oh god, his lips- were perfectly shaped and his teeth were straight and white and immaculate. It was the kind of smile that braces or extremely good genetics bought.

  Muffy folded her hands in her lap. She gripped them tightly, hoping like hell that she was Alex’s type and that he didn’t find her mousy and boring like the rest of the world. My name is Sarah. Sarah, Sarah, say Sarah. Apparently, all her good sense had packed its bags and left her because she wasn’t even supposed to be into this. She was supposed to still be heartbroken over Steve. They’d dated for a year, after all. She was not supposed to be salivating on the inside at the sexy lumberjack that folded his gorgeous male body into the booth across from her.

  “I’m Alex.” He reached across the table with that huge palm. A very nice-looking palm. A very, very nice hand.

  The kind of hand that could do sweet sinful things to a person. Stop! Stop it right now! That heat was spreading to all the wrong spots. A jolt of straight lust hit her right in the- well- muff region.

  “M-Muffy,” she heard herself respond. She extended her hand and it was immediately engulfed in Alex’s palm. It was warm. Oh god, it was deliciously warm. Damn it! Why did I say that?

  “Muffy?” Alex arched one dark brow. He had the kind of brows that were a little messy and thick but were somehow still gorgeously masculine.

  “Yeah. Muffy.” She was about to launch into a diatribe about why her name was so terrible and crippling and awkward when Alex smiled again and that smile stopped her heart, and her brain, in its tracks.

  “I like that. Muffy. You don’t hear that that often.”

  “Uh- well- most people have the sense not to give their kids the kind of name that sounds like something worse than porn.”

  Alex leveled a direct gaze at her. “Are you worse than porn?”

  “N-no,” she stammered while her heart raced painfully in her chest. “I- I’m an accountant.”

  “An accountant, hmm.”

  “I know it’s boring. Almost everything about me is boring. After five minutes, you’ll probably want to escape the date, make up some excuse about the place food poisoning you even though the food hasn’t come yet, dash off to the bathroom, and jump out of the window.”

  “That’s very inventive.” Alex’s grin, his smoking hot, sexy as sin grin, never faded. “I must say, whoever made you the reason you’re single was a real ass. The assiest ass of all time. A woman as pretty as you is a rare score, but a woman who is smart and funny? That’s the whole package right there.”

  “H-how do you know?” Muffy stammered while she melted inside. “Maybe I turn into a crazy raging woman at the stroke of midnight.”

  “Do you?”

  Muffy felt her cheeks heat up. Her skin was annoyingly pale even after a summer of trying to get a tan and any amount of emotion showed on her face. Her cheeks were like a thermometer except instead of measuring the temperature, they were a dead giveaway as to her mood. Steve used to make jokes about her face all the time. Especially when she was angry, which would just make her angrier.

  “It doesn’t have to be midnight,” she admitted. “Sometimes it just happens. Mostly when people make fun of my vampire like pale skin and my cheeks going red all the time.”

  “Did someone actually do that?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, people have.”

  Alex shook his head. “Fools. All of them. Straight to the dungeon for beheading. Oh wait, this isn’t the right century for that.” He picked up the menu off to the side but didn’t actually look at it. No, those velvety soft brown eyes remained locked with her much paler, far less soft, kind of brown, kind of green, not at all impressive orbs.

  “Thanks. Uh- yeah. That’s- wow.” Muffy grabbed her menu and slammed it in front of her face. She was sure she was completely red, and she couldn’t handle meeting Alex’s eyes. “That waitress over there keeps giving me funny looks like she knows this is a blind date kind of deal and she’s afraid to come over here to get our orders because we haven’t even touched our menus and we’re both giving off uncomfortable body language.”

  Alex’s laugh was deep and dark and incredibly sexy and Muffy couldn’t help but imagine him dragging her down to the dungeon and doing her up against the wall while some cagy dragon watched on. Too far. That is seriously way too far. I’m starting to sound like Carla.

  “I guess I’d better choose fast. It looks like she’s coming this way.”

  He’s playing along. Oh my god, he’s playing along. He isn’t getting up and leaving or telling me I’m a hopeless dork or offering to let me finish first. He’s attractive and he’s nice and he’s still… here.

  While her insides combusted into a pile of steaming goo, her eyes scanned the menu and she made a quick choice. Chicken. Chicken was always safe.

  “Hi,” the waitress, a young woman dressed in a black skirt and a white shirt, said in an annoyingly sappy voice. “What can I get for you?”

  She didn’t even offer drinks. There was already water on the table and maybe she figured it was best to just get them their food and get them out of there before the date imploded completely and the fallout happened right there in the middle of the restaurant. Which wasn’t exactly a family establishment. It was nicer than that. Far more classy than the last two spots Muffy had been forced to endure. Not that she’d actually eaten at either.

  “The chicken,” Muffy said in a strained voice. “The Thai chicken, please.”

  “Alright.” The waitress reached out and snapped up Muffy’s menu. She didn’t smile until she looked at Alex and then wow- the wattage turned on big time.

  Muffy was jealous, pissed off and annoyed right down to her ovaries. Alex, to his credit, didn’t even give the waitress, who was blonde and quite attractive, a second glance.

  “I’ll have the sirloin steak. Rare, please, with garlic mashed and the seasonal veggies.” He passed over the menu. “Thanks.” He offered a courteous smile, before he turned back to Muffy.

  “Chicken. That’s a good choice.”

  “I figured it was the safer choice. I never know what to get. I don’t actually eat out much.”

  “You’re a decent cook then?”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’m okay. Better than my roommate.”

  “You have a roommate?”

  Muffy’s entire body did an internal wince. “Yeah. It’s probably not sexy to admit it, given that we’re both working professionals and grown
women, but it works. She’s my best friend. Has been in like forever. She’s like my sister.”

  “No, places are expensive. Everything is expensive now. It just makes sense. And it’s lonely living by yourself.”

  “Carla saved a cat a few weeks ago,” Muffy blurted. “We were thinking about getting another one. You know, so he’d have a friend while we’re both at work all day.”

  “That’s a very noble calling. Saving animals.”

  Muffy couldn’t tell whether Alex was actually kidding or not because his eyes were sparkling and her insides were hurting and she’d probably just ovulated a little and that took a lot of mental power and at the best of times, she wasn’t great at reading other people because every time she looked at guys like Alex, she got all flustered inside and couldn’t actually continue to look at them without that bloody annoying heat creeping into her face.

  “I- uh- do you have pets?”

  “Actually, I don’t. I work at a pretty demanding job and I’m not home enough. I want to get a dog, but yeah- you can’t do that when you’re gone for ten-hour stretches.”

  “Oh. What do you do?”

  “I work in social services actually. Kind of. Yeah.” Alex glanced around awkwardly, for something that shouldn’t have been awkward at all.

  Muffy shifted. “Uh- well I’m an accountant, which is really boring. Social services. That’s great. It must be really rewarding to know you’re making such a big difference in people’s lives.”

  “It is. Yeah. For the most part.”

  They lapsed into easy silence, which was a first. It was surprisingly not at all stressful or awkward. Muffy tried to figure out something to say. She didn’t think the whole grilling twenty questions deal was appropriate and all she could think about was Alex taking her back to his place after and getting back in the saddle like Carla said and that wasn’t appropriate conversation at all.

  She let the silence lapse until their food came out, which was surprisingly fast. And equally as delicious when she dug in.

  Silence or not, she was doing a happy dance on the inside. That dance kept going strong through the small talk she and Alex made while they ate. It kept going, right until he whipped out his credit card to pay for their meal, which was really quite nice of him and it declined.

  CHAPTER 6

  Alex

  Well, phase one of the date was complete. He’d successfully got an applicant after putting an extraordinary amount of effort into setting up the bet. God knew he didn’t do things halfway. He’d never been one of those people who were able to settle for mediocre or half-ass. Maybe it was the way he was brought up. Maybe it was in his genetics. Maybe after such a shitty start in life, he needed to prove to himself that he could be something, or at least someone he himself was proud of. He wasn’t quite sure.

  He’d taken things right to the point of the credit card declining. He had a recorder going on in his phone, just to prove to Jay that he’d actually done it, as part of the parameters of the bet. He’d been thinking up a bet of his own, something special just for Jay. He couldn’t be outdone when it came to bets and as far as they went, this one was pretty damn challenging.

  Their waitress, the blonde girl who was probably just past twenty- a good fifteen years younger than him- sent him an undisguised look of distaste when she passed back his credit card.

  Okay. Maybe Jay was onto something. The girl wasn’t plastic at all. She was a natural blonde and her makeup was tasteful. She was working as a server, which meant she probably had some pretty good work ethics even as a young person and blam! There it was. Like a freight train, that look was so thorough and fast and horrible, it astounded him.

  “Oh. Uh- that’s no problem. Here you go.” Muffy gracefully pulled her purse out of the bag beside her, dug out her wallet, and passed over her card.

  The waitress shot her a look, because apparently, it was true what they said about women always having a silent hatred/challenge thing going on with each other and Muffy was very pretty, even if she was obviously a little shy and called herself mousy and didn’t think so. The girl slammed the card through, printed off the receipt and thumped it down in front of Muffy without a word.

  Muffy waited until she was gone before she raised those gorgeous hazel eyes and blinked her long thick lashes. “Uh- do you think I should leave a tip? She wasn’t very nice. She didn’t even ask us about drinks. She never checked back in on us, but the food was good, and I think part of the tip goes to the kitchen. It’s not really fair to deprive them for her behavior, is it?”

  Alex’s mouth nearly fell open. Muffy didn’t say anything about him being a loser. She didn’t ask him why the hell he didn’t have fifty-two dollars in his bank account. She didn’t spout off rhetoric about it being his duty to pay for the meal or at least inform her that she’d have to pay before they ate. She didn’t look at him like he was some lowlife broke-ass piece of trash horrible blind date.

  No. She was concerned about the inner workings of the restaurant.

  God, she was sexy.

  He’d been a little choosy in his search. He had to find someone who was at least baseline attractive to him or it would never work. Muffy’s profile was a good representation of her in person. Thoughtful. Attractive. Intelligent. Compassionate. Interesting. Gorgeous. Boner-inducing.

  Okay, scratch that last one off the list. He had no right to be thinking that on their first date but yeah, she appeared to be the real deal.

  “Uh- I- well maybe you could write on there that the tip is for the kitchen staff only. At least that would give whoever looks at it a bit of a pause.”

  “She wasn’t overly nice, even before- uh- well- never mind. I’ll just leave the tip. She’ll learn if people keep stiffing her.” Muffy wrote down a number and scrawled her signature at the bottom of the receipt. After, she glanced up, humor dancing in her eyes. “Do you think she’ll make fun of me after? For my name, when she sees it?”

  “I have no doubt,” Alex admitted. “Muffy and the broke dude. Sounds like a band.”

  Muffy giggled. Her laugh was as pretty as the rest of her. She had one of those bodies that was tall and thin but somehow still oddly womanly. She’d worn a simple black dress, one of those kind of non-casual deals that would be appropriate work attire because it was cotton and not sparkly or anything. It was tight enough to outline the gentle swell of her breasts, her petite waist and the sweet swell of her hips, without really making it obvious that she had any of those attributes at all. Her skin was pale, like she said, but it was flawless and creamy and beautiful and didn’t need a stitch of makeup, which she hadn’t worn. Her hair was just past shoulder length and she’d curled it, making it shine.

  Muffy was the kind of woman who didn’t know she was beautiful and that alone made her incredibly desirable.

  That and she was kind. It didn’t take a genius to feel those waves of compassion and joy radiating from her. She was one of those people with a naturally magnetic energy.

  “Oh god, it does.” Muffy grabbed the receipt back and under her signature, wrote, PS. We are not a band. She grabbed up her purse and slid out of the booth. One perfectly manicured dark brow rose as she studied him. “So, what now?”

  “I- er- you still want to- finish the date? Even after- uh?”

  “You don’t have to explain anything. I’ve been there a thousand times before. I just got a promotion last year and before that, things were really tight. Everything’s expensive now. Everything’s a struggle. I don’t know how people make it alone. I have my roommate to share half of the expenses and still… oh god. I’m babbling. I’m sorry. I should have just said, no big deal. I’d rather you work in social services and make a difference than be some hotshot lawyer who has a big bank account but is a total asshole. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that either. I’ll just shut up now.”

  Alex couldn’t keep in a laugh. When he laughed, Muffy looked at him like she really enjoyed the sound, and god, he liked to see her smile.

  He didn’t know her at all. Really, he didn’t. But he wanted to. Bet or no bet, there was no way he was going to let her get in her car and disappear.