Chloe sits back as the server returns with our drinks. “Sounds like we’re in for a treat! Thank you.”

Gales raises his beer. “To minor bribery.”

“To minor bribery,” we chorus, and clink glasses. As we drink, I watch Darcy over the rim of my wineglass. Catching me, he arches a brow and places his beer back on the table.

“Bare?” he whispers.

It takes the warm pass of his hand over my knee for his question to click. “Yeah. No stockings today.” His hand moves in circles over my skin.

“So, Darcy,” says Gales. “Liz mentioned you’re in wealth management?”

“Will Darcy: Man of Business,” I say.

Darcy chuckles. “Something like that. It’s how I ended up at Meryton. A friend was looking to invest in property, and the club was the most promising of the options he found. Done right, Meryton could be extremely profitable. The current owner . . .” He lets out a huff of a laugh, then takes a drink of his beer. “He’s wasting an opportunity.”

“Speaking of Meryton,” Chloe starts, “Gales and I are going to Lizzy’s show tomorrow and she’s being super coy about it. What’s this place like, Darcy?”

“Chloe,” I warn.

“The least we can do is go in prepared,” she says.

Darcy shifts his grip a few inches higher on my leg, making me more receptive to this little game of my cousin’s. “You’re already more prepared than I was. The information I’d been given on the property described it as a cabaret. I did not expect clothing to come off.”

“Or a kitten?” Chloe offers.

I narrow my eyes.

He rubs his hand up and down my leg, and—oh, Diane von Furstenberg, hallowed be thy name—the movement is enough to part my wrap dress, and his hand is high on bare thigh. “No,” he says. “Nor a kitten.”

I am suddenly much more forgiving of my cousin.

“The food is good. Not great, which is too bad—there’s a lot of potential there,” he says, directing the comment at Gales.

“Is this something your friend who’s buying it plans to do?” he asks. “Change the kitchen?”

“It would be in his best interest,” Darcy admits. “Even if the venue’s focus isn’t on the plates. I’ve come to appreciate those other elements.”

The admission gets my pulse thrilling. I prop my chin in my hand. “Is that so?”

Darcy’s hand moves over my leg slowly, fingertips lighting along the inside of my knee. “It is.”

“That’s something you’ve never mentioned, Liz,” Gales says, interrupting perfectly good eye coitus. But Darcy continues stroking my leg, so I decide to let the big man live. “Maybe you’ve explained it to Chloe, but how’d you end up being part of the show?”