He shrugged those mouthwateringly broad shoulders. “Have it your way.”
“Always.” Okay, not really, but it made her sound all badass and she had a feeling she was going to need that bit of bravado to keep her head on straight for the next few weeks. She was going to need that edge because Sawyer was about to learn the art of negotiation from a real master. She couldn’t wait to see how he’d take it. Now this was gonna be fun.
Chapter Six
Vito’s Diner sat on the corner of Hammish and Fifth. The burgers were thick and charbroiled. The shakes were made with full-fat milk and ice-cream. The breakfast was served twenty-four hours a day. Best of all? There wasn’t a socialite in sight. It was the only place Sawyer Carlyle wanted to be after they’d run the gauntlet trying to make a quiet exit out of the gala and the last place Clover probably imagined he’d ever go.
She sat across from him in the booth—he’d taken the side with the tear in the blue vinyl seat—and studied the six-page menu that covered everything from colossal pancakes to cheddar melts to mom’s chocolate chip cookies. They’d spent the ride over on opposite ends of the Town Car’s backseat.
The kiss in the supply closet had been the kind his cock wasn’t going to forget anytime soon, but he couldn’t let it happen again. One, she may not be his employee but he was still signing her checks. That employer/employee line was there for a reason. Two, he wasn’t fooling himself. They were still in the middle of a negotiation. He’d been in the game too long to lose an advantage because his dick had started doing the thinking for both heads.
The waitress stopped at their table, pad and pencil at the ready. “Hey Sawyer, you feeling the burger or the tuna melt tonight?”
Easiest decision of the night. “Cheeseburger, please, Donna.”
“Excellent.” She nodded, her French fry earrings bobbing. “Everything on it?”
“You bet, and extra bacon.”
“Got it. Chocolate shake?”
Just the mental image of the shake loosened some of the tension pinching his shoulders tight. “The biggest you’ve got.”
“That kinda night, huh? I’ll add some extra cherries for you.” Donna chuckled and gave him a wink before turning to Clover. “How about you, hun?”
“Can I get the same kind of cheeseburger he’s having but with jalape?os instead of the extra bacon?”
“You got it,” Donna said. “Anything else?”
Clover’s gaze traveled down the full menu page devoted to shakes and malts as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ll take the pineapple shake but a small, please.”
A small? That was a sacrilege at Vito’s—sort of like turning down a cheesesteak in Philadelphia or a real deep dish pizza in Chicago.
“They’re really good,” he said. “You’re gonna regret that size.”
“He’s right, hun,” Donna said, backing him up.
Clover gnawed on her lip for another three seconds before nodding her head. Decision made. “Okay, I’ll give you that win. As big as they come, extra cherries.”
“Now that’s how you do a night at Vito’s.” Donna slipped her pencil in with the three others stuck in her steel gray bun. “I’ll have it out to you two in a jiffy.”
Donna strolled away, humming in that tuneless way of hers, to go drop off their ticket to her husband, Steve, in the kitchen.
“I take it you come here a lot,” Clover said, flipping her menu shut and putting it back in its original spot between the half-filled ketchup and totally-full mustard.
“Yeah, Linus pretty much saved my sanity the first time he took me here after one of my mom’s never-ending charitable fundraisers.”
He was there so often now he’d made it onto the regulars’ board. After he’d spent a few meals decompressing from one or another of his mother’s events, he’d asked about Vito. Turned out Vito was Donna and Steve’s dog, who’d been banned from his own restaurant under threat from the city health inspector.
Clover toyed with the sugar packets. “Fancy parties aren’t your thing?”
“Not when she’s got five women lined up like she’s casting the role of Mrs. Sawyer Carlyle,” he grumbled, sounding like an ungrateful ass and not caring one bit.
“Which brings us back to business.”
“Yeah, I guess it does.”
“Then let’s get to it.” She pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and smoothed it out on the table before pushing it across to him. “I’m assuming you have a pen in your jacket, my purse barely fits my phone and my lipstick.”
“I don’t think we need to write anything down.” But he reached out to take the napkin anyway, his fingers brushing hers and sending a shot of electricity straight down to his cock before she pulled her hand away.
“Nice try, Big Bucks.” She went straight back to fiddling with the sugar packets as if she wanted to touch something—someone—as much as he did right now. “You’re writing it down.”
He took off his glasses and with deliberate care cleaned them with the napkin she provided. Dick move? Oh yes. Negotiations weren’t about being nice. Good thing being an asshole was never a problem for him. “Don’t trust me?”
Her snort was about as far from the sound a socialite would make as he was from closing the Singapore deal. “I trust written agreements more.”
“Okay, let’s start at the beginning then.” He smoothed out the napkin on the table and then withdrew a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. “We need a cover story. No one is going to buy that we met and got engaged in the same day.”
Not by a long shot they wouldn’t. While she delicately annihilated her bottom lip and fidgeted with the sugar packets, he scanned his memory for RomCom movie plots for something that would work—not that he was about to say that out loud. It was bad enough Hudson knew his guilty pleasure. If Clover had that little tidbit in her pocket, he had no doubts she’d use it against him.
She made a little ah-ha sound and her face lit up; the sugar packets fell onto the table forgotten. “Secret relationship.”
He nodded. “We could have met while you were in Singapore on one of my trips over to see Mr. Lim.” He’d seen it work, on the big screen at least, but those schemes always required backup. “I’ll have to bring my brother Hudson in on it for corroboration, but we can pull it off.”
She slumped back against her seat. “Your mom won’t buy it.”
“She will if we do it right.” Socially acceptable PDA, being seen together, family events. His stomach tightened at the possibility of how Clover would wilt under a solo Helene Carlyle interrogation. There was only one way to avoid that. “You’ll have to move in to my place.”