Page 9 of Start With A Slap

Wow. He’d set her up. He looked proud of it, too. “That’s not what I said.”

Before he could respond, the owner came to personally welcome Sever. In the meantime, she turned to Jason and squeezed his thigh to reassure him. He kept his gaze on the owner, however, and didn’t squeeze back.

“And we’ll have a bottle of...” Sever asked her, “What do you like to drink? Red, white, sparkling?”

“I... don’t really have a preference.” She didn’t want him to know more about her—not after his last comment, but then she heard Jason say, a little brusquely, “She likes Cava.”

“Sparkling then,” he said, then told the owner, “Let’s blow her mind with your best Cuvee.”

“Anything for your beautiful wife.”

Ivy tensed, and felt Jason do the same. Talk about adding insult to injury. It wasn’t the guy’s fault—she was sitting between the two men—but she had to set the record straight. “I’m not his?—”

It was too late; the owner was gone.

Sever turned to her. “Let’s you and I have a chat, yeah?”

Ivy went into fight/flight/freeze mode. Was he about to bring up The Incident?

Jason interjected, “Come on, that’s enough with the third degree?—”

“Have a smoke,” his father said, waving him off like a servant. “I need five minutes with your lovely bride.”

Jason, clearly restraining a comment, let out a frustrated sigh. Without waiting for a reaction from her, he took a pack of Camels out of his breast pocket, tapped it twice on the table, then went for the exit. She watched him intently for the signal that never came.

Was he angry at her? About whatSeversaid about kids?

She wanted to go after him, but that wasn’t a conversation for here or now or hopefully ever, and now she was alone with his father again, and her skin was buzzing, and why didn’tshehave a sign?

Chin resting on his palm, Sever seemed to be appraising her as though she were a painting. His forthright gaze caused an irrational fear that he’d seen the pornographic dream clips kaleidoscope through her mind.

What was he doing? And why was it doing something to her? “Are you gonna say something or...”

Apparently not.She felt herself starting to blush.First stuttering, then crying, now blushing?He made her do so many things she never did.

He inhaled, held it for a moment, exhaled. “Do you know I haven’t been slapped in over twenty years?”

She opened her mouth, withheld a bitter grin, shook her head.

“Say what you’re thinking,” he prodded. “Go on. No repercussions.”

“Then you were probably due,” she said.

He smiled and squinted at her again. “I think I like you.”

O-kay...

“A lot.” His gaze trailed down her front and lingered on the nipple he’d squeezed the week before.

It was hard for Ivy to focus on his words when he was doing that.

Eyes returning to hers, he said, “I want to have an affair with you.”

Thosewords she heard, though she could barely believe her ears. She wasn’t shocked that the attraction was mutual, she’d picked up on that—it was his bold jump from subtext to text, his blatant disregard for his son’s feelings, and the way he presented it. It wasn’t a proposition, it was a statement—matter-of-fact, cocksure, as if he were buying a car, and she was the car he wanted.

“Well, youcan’t,” she began to sound out as if he were a toddler, but he abruptly cut her off.

“Let me rephrase,” he said. “You and I are having an affair.”

---