Page 43 of Brutal King

Jealousy? Hell no. I was just concerned with my partner’s work.

“Did you stay all night?” I asked before I’d really considered the question.

She smirked. “Trent is very interested in my ideas regarding how to run the restaurant.”

“And what? You spent the night there discussing them?”

That smirk again.

“He’s very nice, you know,” she said with an annoyingly bright smile. “Kind, good listener... good storyteller, too.”

“If he’s so nice,” I spat, “then he helped you with the project, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So how much work did you get done late last night? What were you guys doing? And don’t tell me that it’s none of my business. If this concerns the project, I have a right to know.”

She turned to squarely face me. “If you must know, Kobe, we went out to lunch. In doing so, we thought it would be a good idea to scope out nearby restaurants, see what the competition was up to. It was quite enlightening.”

“Then what,” I said with more anger than I wanted. “That’s lunch. How does lunch turn into coming home late?”

She shrugged and smiled. “Then we went back to Ginger and...”

My upper lip curled into a sneer, but I fought to control my emotions and forced a silly smile.

“Now, Kobe. Did you come all the way here so early in the morning to get to work on this project, or did you come just to talk about my late night out?”

Your late night out.

“In case you haven’t noticed, both are connected.” Shit, it was such a lame response.

“Right,” she said with a knowing side glance.

I could see it in her eyes. Something had happened between the two of them. He’d touched her. Hell, worse than that; she’d liked it!

Trent? You’d go for a guy like Trent? A mere manager of some small Napa Valley restaurant?

“Could we get going, Kobe?” Kat opened the door. “I have a bunch of questions I want to ask Trent, and I thought of a really cute promo print ad we could make.”

I remained where I stood.

“Kobe?Come on.Let’s go.”

I shook my head. “I’ve changed my mind.”

She covered her mouth with her hand as she yawned. “What? What do you mean you’ve changed your mind? About what?”

“About going to Ginger.”

“No,” she said with a firm shake of her head. She pointed out the door and yawned again. “You got me up, and now we are going out there. I didn’t get all dressed up for nothing.”

My mind raced with the search for excuses to give her. I had to find an explanation other than, I don’t want you near Trent. I don’t want to have to sit by and watch you two make eyes at one another.

Putting her hand on her hip, she yawned again and glared at me.

“Look at you,” I said, finally finding the proper excuse that would make me look like the bigger man. “You’re exhausted.”

“Well,” she said with hesitation. “Yeah, but now that I’m up...”

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