All About Evie by Beth Ciotta Page B

knee-melting grin and plowed on. “You sent a bottle of champagne backstage. Attached was a romantic note. An original poem that won my heart. I adored you before we even met. Later that night you took me out to dinner, swept me off my acrylic stilettos. One week later we were married in Gabriel’s Chapel of Love. All told we’ve only known each other for one month, hence we’re still learning the details of one another’s lives. Convenient,” I said, ditching the tomato for a cucumber. “In case you screw up.”
    Arch leaned forward, picked at the label of his bottle. “I willnae screw up.”
    â€œNeither will I.” I leaned in, as well. “I’m a quick study.”
    â€œSo I’ve noticed.”
    â€œMy improvisational skills rock.”
    â€œWitnessed that on the plane, yeah?”
    The plane . “About that. I just want you to know, I’m not much of a drinker.”
    â€œI gathered.”
    â€œI mean, I’m not a lush. I’ve just had…It’s been a rough…day.”
    â€œWant to talk aboot it?”
    â€œNo, thanks.” I nibbled on a cucumber.
    He took a long pull of his beer, settled back in his chair. “Right then. Tell me aboot Charles Dupont.”
    Every now and then I was ultraconscious of his accent and I found myself smiling because, gosh, it was sexy. About sounded like aboot and will not came out willnae . We won’t talk about what his tongue did to R s. A nimble tongue like that could probably—well, we won’t go there.
    He quirked a brow as if to say, what’s the holdup? I didn’t want to explain that I was aroused by his accent. So, I repeated everything he’d told me, down to the year his first wife died and the names of his deceased pets and estranged children. Not that I was trying to impress him.
    Well, yeah, I guess I was.
    He lived on an estate in Connecticut—Charles, not Arch. Came from old money. I, Sugar, didn’t know where it originated exactly, only that he had tons of it. Yup, Charlie was loaded. He was also a writer. Published under a pseudonym. Unlike Sugar, the man shunned the spotlight.
    He also shunned women his own age.
    He’d sprained his ankle, hence the cane, after tripping while chasing me around the room in the midst of playful sex.
    Too bad that was only part of the profile. Sounds like fun.
    Arch leaned back in his chair, considered me with those lightning eyes.
    Zap.
    Yeah, boy, I felt that. Interest.
    â€œYou’re good.”
    â€œThanks.” If those casino execs would’ve paid attention when I’d delivered that copy, they, too, might have been impressed with my memory skills. It felt good to be appreciated. “You’re not so bad yourself.” It wasn’t my style to gloat—even though I was sort of needy in the compliment department just now—so I turned the attention on him. Besides, I truly was impressed with Arch Reece the Actor. “When I first saw you, I thought you were, like, I don’t know, sixty.”
    â€œProsthetics.”
    â€œI get that, and I’m in awe. I’ve never explored anything outside of traditional theatrical makeup. But it’s more than that. Your body language, the costume. You came off like a foppish tycoon with the hots for a brainless bimbo. Just like in Some Like It Hot. Although, Tony Curtis?” I snorted. “Try Truman Capote.”
    Actually, he’d more closely resembled a bespectacled Sean Connery, post-James Bond. Like Arch, Connery possessed a timeless charisma. No way was I confessing a bad case of thigh-sweats for either man.
    One side of his mouth kicked up. “If you recall, I did say Curtis with a twist, yeah?”
    â€œYeah.” That was another thing about his accent. Three-quarters of his statements sounded like questions, even when he didn’t finish with his signature, yeah? I remember I used to think the same thing about the