Check Her Out (His Curvy Librarian Book 2) by Frankie Love (the false prince .TXT) 📗

“The red dress?” I’m practically drooling, and I’ve got hearts in my eyes. “Really?”

“This is obviously a special night,” she says. “I’ve never heard you get so excited about a guy so fast before.”

She goes over to my bedroom, acting right at home like she never left, and hooks the garment bag over the back of the door. The red dress is a strappy little thing that Cassidy bought for her parents’ twenty-fifth anniversary party a few years ago, and I fell in love at first sight.

Ever since that party, the dress has been imbued with love magic in my mind, like a talisman, and I’ve made no secret out of how much I like it. The fact that Cassidy brought it tonight… well, she must be as excited about my date with Prescott as I am.

“Please don’t make this something more than it is,” I say, even as I’m gently lifting the dress out of the garment bag. “He’s just tagging along with a girl and her friends to a movie.”

“Yeah, about that…” Nora smiles mischievously.

“What?” I ask.

“We’re ditching you,” she says.

“What?”

Cassidy takes over. She takes the dress from my hands, slipping it off its hanger as she says, “You’re going to put on this sexy little number and have a romantic evening with a handsome stranger who just happens to have read all your favorite books, and you’re not going to have your two best friends tagging along, ruining the moment.”

“But–” I start to object, but honestly, there’s no use. When these girls have made up their minds about something, there’s nothing anyone can say to change them.

Besides… the butterflies are starting to awaken in my stomach again, and I actually really love the idea of having Prescott all to myself.

“What will you two do tonight?” I ask.

“We’re commandeering your apartment for the time being,” Nora said, producing a bottle of champagne from the depths of her enormous sack of a purse. “We’re going to stay in and have our own little girls’ night, and when this bottle is empty… who knows? Maybe we’ll end up at the festival after all.”

“You mean you’ll come spy on Prescott and me,” I say with a laugh. I’ve known these two since preschool—I can read everything they say, and everything they don’t say.

“Exactly,” Cassidy says.

“But don’t worry—we won’t intervene unless it’s some kind of dating disaster,” Nora promises.

“Which it won’t be,” Cassidy chimes in, a twinkle in her eyes.

Nora disappears into the kitchen to fetch a few glasses for the champagne. I get changed into the red dress, which fits like a second skin and looks even better than I remembered, and Nora is just pouring me a glass of bubbly when the doorbell rings again.

“He’s here!” Cassidy sing-songs. “Quick, let’s do a toast.”

“A toast?” I ask.

“To finding storybook love,” she says, “wherever it may be.”

We clink glasses and I end up downing my champagne in one gulp because I don’t want to keep Prescott waiting—and I could use a dose of liquid courage anyway.

Then I go to the door, waving the girls away as I open it.

Prescott is standing there with a bouquet of delicate white and yellow frangipani, expensive flowers done up in a silk ribbon. He’s done up himself, in a finely tailored black suit. And his mouth drops open in blatant admiration as his eyes drink me in.

Score one for the red dress.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi. You look stunning.”

He gives me the flowers, and his eyes go over my shoulder as I realize that Nora and Cassidy have crowded behind me in the doorway.

“We’ll take those,” Cassidy says, reaching for the flowers. “We’ll put them in water for you.”

“The best friends, I presume?” Prescott asks. “Are you two coming with us?”

Nora shakes her head and pulls Cassidy away from the door, and I grab my clutch off a nearby table. “You get me all to yourself tonight,” I say, looking into those smoldering, dark eyes and nearly falling in.

“I’m a lucky man,” he says, and offers me his arm.

4

Prescott

“Seriously,” I tell Brooklyn as I lead her outside to my car. “You look amazing. I practically had to scoop my jaw off the floor when you opened that door.”

She’s blushing again, the color creeping across her exposed collarbones and up into her cheeks, and my mind is already going to filthy places, wondering where else I can make her heat up.

“So you’re not disappointed that my friends won’t be tagging along tonight?” she asks with a coy smile.

“Devastated,” I tell her, opening the passenger door for her.

She slides into my gunmetal gray Lexus, low to the ground with soft leather seats that I can’t help picturing her thighs sliding across.

“Nice ride,” she says. “I expected something a little more… modest.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I say, running my hand along the roof of the car. “This car’s my weakness though—one little luxury.”

If only she knew what I was driving around a few years ago. Audis, Porsches, I even rented a Lamborghini once just so I could show up in style to a party my parents were throwing. It disgusts me now, how much flash and extravagance I used to think I needed. I’m glad Brooklyn is meeting me now because I have a feeling she wouldn’t have liked me then.

“Well, it’s beautiful,” she says, running her palm over the leather.

“Hey, don’t get too familiar or I’m bound to be jealous,” I say, then close the door and come around to the driver’s side.

We head over to the theater in Golden Creek’s quaint, walkable downtown area. The festival is in full swing by the time we get there, with a carousel, food trucks and carnival games set up all along the street, and a stage for live music at the other end.

I buy a couple movie tickets for the two of us, plus a bag of popcorn and a couple of soft drinks, and we go into the theater. I hold the