Read Online Smart vs. Pretty by Valerie Frankel - Free Book Online

him again. She furtively reached up and tapped his palm. Paul rolled his eyes from across the bar.
    Amanda said, “You know, I’m fascinated by mountain climbers. The danger. The adventure. The physical exertion. Rappelling. It’s so adrenaline-based.”
    “I was more like a trekker than a climber,” he said. “I set out to climb Everest, but I never went higher than five thousand feet.”
    “The ideal altitude for growing arabica coffee trees.” Amanda threw that in. What the hell.
    He smiled. “Is that a fact?”
    “I’ve got a million of them.”
    “One at a time will be fine.” He signaled Paul for another round.
    The bartender brought the drinks. Amanda smiled and shooed Paul away. He had a tendency to hover. She detected a sudden bulletin from her intuition: Get some privacy with Chick. She didn’t want Paul’s smirks and eye rolling to distract her from the emerging warmth she felt in her pelvis. “Let’s get a table,” she said to Chick. Maybe if they were sitting across from each other instead of side by side, Chick wouldn’t do…that hand thing.
    Chick said, “A table sounds great, Amanda. In a nice, quiet corner.” His eyes darkened sexily.
    “Somewhere we can talk,” she agreed.
    “Somewhere private.”
    “A place where we can share our hopes and dreams,” she said.
    “Reveal our fears and fantasies.”
    They smiled at each other. “You’re being ironic, right?” She had to ask. She knew she was. She honestly wasn’t sure about him.
    He laughed and tilted his head back, flashing her another nice clean shot of his lovely neck. He said, “You’re hilarious. Ironic! I love that. Gimme five.”
    Oh, dear God. As he held his muscular arm aloft for the third time in as many minutes, Amanda suddenly understood why this gorgeous, intelligent man was single. She said, “I’m sorry, Chick. I can’t do…that. I just can’t.”
    “Do what?” he asked.
    “That.” She made a mini high-five motion.
    “What’s that?”
    “The high-five thing,” she whispered. “I’m not much of a sports fan.”
    His face turned to dust. He said, “Oh, Jesus. You think I’m a complete idiot, don’t you? This is humiliating. Here I am, sitting with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m so nervous I’m reduced to ridiculous jerk-off behavior. Any excuse to touch you, I guess. This is too embarrassing. I’ve got to go.” He leaped off his stool and threw a twenty on the bar.
    Amanda, now mortified herself, said, “Please stay. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen? Any excuse to touch her? “You can touch me, Chick.” She felt awful. You can teach a man to stop high-fiving, but you can’t teach him to be gorgeous and adventurous. Why had she opened her mouth at all? She begged, “Really, Chick, please stay.”
    “Now I’m a pity case. I like you, Amanda. I really do. I think I love you. That sounds even more absurd than everything else I’ve said. I have to leave. Right away. I’ll call you.” And then he ran into the night, but not before accidentally kicking over his bar stool and disrupting a waitress’s tray of drinks in the process.
    Chase after him? Not in this dress, she thought. Amanda groaned. Paul brought her another Kir Royale. She asked the bartender, “Did you hear that?” The entire planet heard it. Paul just nodded. “I don’t get it,” Amanda complained. “He was so confident at Barney Gree…Romancing the Bean. He even held my hand. What happened?”
    Paul said, “What you’ve witnessed tonight, my friend, was the difference between a man jacked on caffeine and a man tanked on vodka.”
    “Is this a pearl of bartender wisdom?” she asked.
    Paul said, “He had three drinks before you showed up.”
    “Did you talk to him at all?”
    Paul shrugged. “I listened to him babble.”
    “I shouldn’t have made him wait,” she whined. “It’s my fault the date was ruined.”
    “Forget him,