Jesus, I’m allergic to those. I need to stop.

“All right,” she sighs in exasperation. “So your brother likes smart women with personality?”

“Yeah. He has this…thing about dating a woman who’s his intellectual equal, who is also good with banter. Arguing—sorry, debate, as he calls it—is his foreplay. He needs someone who can keep up. It’s no fun to verbally beat someone who didn’t have a prayer of winning in the first place.”

“For real?”

I can’t tell whether she’s intrigued or horrified. “When he met Britta at a caravan—that’s the term for a bunch of Realtors spending a morning hopping from property to property en masse to preview new listings for their clients—she was filling in for her sick boss. She looked impeccably beautiful. Crisp white shirt that hugged her body. The open collar revealed just a hint of cleavage… The black skirt flirted with her knees and wrapped to a slit up the back that showed most of her legs. She wore these ridiculous heels with wraparound strap thingies. She had great legs. Don’t get me wrong. She looked professional as hell. Put together, low-key makeup, understated jewelry. But she looked like a woman. And she put him in his place with a sentence. That’s definitely Griff’s thing. He likes to conquer the strong and dirty up the pretty.”

Keeley looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Then you picked the wrong woman for this task. I’ve never been understated or professional in my life.”

“I can make you those things.”

“You want to change me?” She raises a brow in warning.

“No, I like you as is. But for the purposes of derailing Griff… Think of it as a—what do you women call it?—yeah, a makeover. If you really decide to be an innkeeper, it could help you.”

The accusation on her face relaxes, and I’m damn glad I think fast on my feet.

“Maybe,” she concedes.

“Besides, I’m only altering the way you appear temporarily. It’s you he’ll want. Your humor and wit. Your charm. Your intelligence. Your quick comebacks.” And her compassion. He’ll like that, too. “Once my brother has conquered and dirtied, he wants someone he can relate to. I don’t know if he’d ever admit it, but that’s what he once liked most about Britta. She understood and accepted him.”

Keeley nods as if she grasps all that. “That makes sense.”

“Right. To stay with someone long term, you have to talk after you boink, I guess. I’ve never experienced that, but I’m sure it would be nice. Tiffanii wasn’t a conversationalist—unless she was the subject. Every time I tried to talk to her about my past, she’d tell me to see a therapist, then shove her earbuds in her iPad and watch another YouTube video about makeup.”

Keeley rolls her eyes as if she has a strong opinion about Tiff that isn’t good. “You think I’m smart, huh? That my personality is slightly dazzling?”

When she smiles, I’m captivated by this little dimple in her cheek. I never noticed it before, but it’s a spot of cute on an otherwise beautiful face.

“Fishing for compliments?” I tease back.

I like this happy Keeley way better than the serious, digging-in-my-psyche version.

She looks like she has a quick, playful reply right on the tip of her tongue, then reconsiders it. “Mostly I just want to know why you chose me.”

It’s a fair question. I can’t put it into words except to say, “It’s a gut feeling. I looked at you beyond the makeup and the dress and I heard you. The way you sang. I could hear…your heart, I guess. That probably sounds stupid because you were totally singing about thinking of me and touching yourself.”

“Well, not you specifically.”

“Of course it was me,” I refute with a wink. “Everyone in the room knew it.”

“You mean, except the three other guys who wanted to pick me up?”

“They were dense. You could look at them and tell their IQs were in the neighborhood of their shoe size.”

“Maxon…” She laughs at me as if she can’t do anything else.

At least it clears up the last of the tense air between us. But I’m not dumb. She’ll go about her business tomorrow, then come back with more questions. She’ll dig deeper and want to understand. Really, I’ve never dissected my life like this, and it’s funny how much I’m realizing just by saying it out loud. At this rate, why would I ever need therapy when I have Keeley?

“To be honest, after you teased the audience and put that one wrestler wannabe in his place, I knew Griff would be intrigued. Then I pictured you in something tailored and classic yet feminine and put it together with your sweetly assertive personality. I knew my brother would go insane.”

She takes a sip of her wine. “If you wanted me for your brother, why did you sleep with me first?”

How much do I tell her? Anything I say makes me sound like a dirtbag. Then again, I’ve never apologized for who I am. Why start now? “I couldn’t help myself.”

Her face softens. She has to be thinking that she couldn’t help herself, either. Some gentle sentiment I can’t quite decipher pours from those blue eyes. Despite all the sparkly shadow and heavy black liner, I see it. Hell, I feel it.

But Keeley doesn’t speak it. She merely nods.

“I understand wanting what you want when you want it. The truth is, we can’t always have that.”

A veiled warning not to come on to her again. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to heed that. We’re sitting close. During the conversation, night has fallen and the moon makes her glimmer under its soft silvery beams. She’s chewed her bottom lip so much it’s swollen and red. Our forearms are so close I can feel the body heat rising from hers. If I lift my hand, I could tangle our fingers together. I think about it. I think hard. One little move and I could be touching her…

But that would make me an even bigger asshole, wouldn’t it?

Having this sudden conscience is annoying.

I pull back. I try to be all suave about it, lean back in my chair like I didn’t want to jump on her all along.

Not sure she’s buying it when she leans back and crosses her arms over her chest pensively.

“Yeah. Whatever,” I flip back at her.

Keeley sends me a skeptical glance but lets it go. “So what’s next? How do you make me into Griff’s fantasy girl?”