She buried the flicker of hurt. Two glasses of wine had muted that unnameable fear that he was tiring of her, that he no longer loved her. Pride insisted that she play it as normal. As she wanted it to be. She kept an arm around Kyle’s narrow waist as they walked back up to the kitchen, reminding herself that he’d told her once she could not have looked sexier in that dress, and he had always loved her barefoot…
“Looks as if we won’t be needing this,” Kyle said dryly as he extricated himself from her embrace and set the McDonald’s bag on the counter. “And it looks as if you two have been entertaining yourselves while I’ve been gone. Morgan-” The handshake was quick and automatic, Kyle’s blue eyes bearing down on Morgan’s brown ones with a strange deliberateness. “I’ve been expecting you, for some unknown reason. Actually, long before this. How’ve you been?”
“In trouble, regularly. You?”
“Morgan brought the steaks,” Erica explained, feeling a sudden niggling worry that Kyle might have seen the fancy dinner and her dressy attire as efforts on her part to please Morgan. She appreciated the gesture of the McDonald’s takeout supper more than she would have caviar; it was an acknowledgment that they were both sharing twelve-hour workdays. The worry passed. Morgan was Kyle’s closest friend; Kyle could not possibly misunderstand. “You’re just in time,” she said brightly.
Morgan went out of his way to be entertaining throughout dinner. The wine flowed freely and the steaks were delicious; Erica and Kyle alternately praised and teased the chef.