Page 70 of Love to Hate You

“No, I want someone to bounce ideas off of.” And for some reason he wanted that someone to be her. “The board made a unilateral decision to up the opening knowing that it would be nearly impossible to make the date. They’re doing whatever they can to sabotage Randy and me.”

“I just don’t get why the board would want you to fail. They still stand to make money with you at the helm. And you’re so good they’d be at a loss without you. They make me so mad I want to slash their tires.”

“Love, are you getting protective over me again?”

“Damn straight,” she said, and something inside him warmed. “I hate bullies, and they’re bullies.”

“It’s hard not to be conniving and cunning when there are billions at stake. I mean, just look at the tricks I played on you. I really was just having fun with it all, but I knew that it was messing with your head. And for that, I’m sorry.”

“It was all fair play. I did my share of sneaky things to tick you off.”

“Some of your pranks were ingenious. Like walking your dog through the wet concrete, leaving paw prints all over the pad near our front doors.”

“Well, Princess Buttercup is very particular about her potty spots, and your land used to be a vacant lot. Potty Utopia.”

“Uh-huh,” he said with a grin.

“It took the crew two extra days to re-pour that concrete. I had to pay a security guard to watch it overnight. And there is still a big print right in front of my door.”

“Jeremiah was a nice guy. I bribed him with my nonna’s molasses cookies and he let me get in one last word.”

“I think it had more to do with the baker than the cookies. One look at that smile of yours and any guy would be toast.”

He loved the way she got flustered when he said things like that. What he didn’t like was that she didn’t know how to take a compliment, as if other men in her life had deprived her of them.

He could tell by the way she stared off into the distance that it was topic over. He’d let her have this one. But at some point they were going to talk about how she deserved to be treated for when the next guy came around.

An unexpected flash of jealousy and anger raged through him and he felt his arms tighten, pulling her closer at the thought of some other douchebag holding her hand, kissing her, touching that amazing ass.

“You okay?” she asked.

He tucked her into his side. “I am now.”

They were quiet for a long moment, but it was that comfortable kind of silence that only happened when two people had a special kind of connection. And he felt theirs growing every day.

“If it was that serious of a call, why aren’t you on the road back to Ridgefield?”

“I’m heading that way tomorrow.”

“I have to go back early too,” she said. “I have a podcast to do.”

“I have an idea, why don’t we wake up early and drive together? We can get done what needs to be done.”

“It would be nice to have someone to argue with,” she teased, and he laughed.

The Ferris wheel came to a stop to let another party on, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face into his shoulder.

“Are we falling? It feels like we’re falling. Oh god, we’re falling, aren’t we.”

“Open your eyes and you’ll see that we just came to a stop to let someone off.”

“I want to get off. How do we get off?”

“I have a few ideas on that, but we’re in public,” he said in a sexy voice.

She elbowed him in the ribs but laughed. She was terrified to her bones and he’d made her laugh. It felt as if he were on top of the world. And they were. They were just a few feet from the peak of the ride.

The top of a Ferris wheel was like mistletoe, right? It came with a kiss?

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