Page 319 of The Tempted

“Not really,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders then holding up his hands in defeat. “Don’t look at me like that, just a concerned friend,” he explained.

“A concerned friend?” I questioned.

He threw his arm over my shoulders and brought me closer to him. The same way my brother used too. What a blow to the ego.

“Of course, Kitten. It’s a bitch living two lives,” he declared, stepping up to place our order.

The girl at the counter was a fan of Riggs’, batting her eyelashes and scowling at me before she promised to bring our pizza to the table for us. She probably would poison me so she could slide into the booth with him.

I shook my head and dismissed her, bringing myself back to what Riggs last said.

“You speaking from experience?” I asked him, as we sat down across from one another. He took his hat off for a second to run his hands through his hair before he pulled the knit skull cap down again.

“Maybe,” he said, leaning over the table. “You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine,” he teased.

“You know my secret already. Which makes this friendship unfair as you have an advantage over me. We should be on common ground, so for the sake of our friendship you need to tell me some deep dark secret of yours,” I said coyly.

His eyes dipped to my lips, and I reached out, lifting his chin with my index finger so our eyes could meet.

“Fine, what do you want to know?” he spread his arms wide in emphasis. “I’ll give you anything you want,” he grinned, glancing down at his crotch. “Anything,” he confirmed.

The waitress dropped off our slices and Riggs went to work heavily shaking red pepper flakes all over his pizza. So he liked things spicy. Me too.

He took a huge bite, chomping away, when the thing I wanted to know most came to me.

“Your name,” I said.

“What about it?” he replied, as he chewed, reaching for his bottle of water.

“Tell me what your real name is,” I said, picking at the slice in front of me, still not sure the waitress didn’t spike it to get to Riggs.

He swallowed the food he was chewing and stared at me quietly for a beat.

“You said anything,” I reminded him.

“Robert,” he hissed, as though it pained him to say. “Robert Montgomery the third,” he finished, taking a big gulp of water, washing down the foul taste his real name left on his tongue.

I kept my face neutral, letting his name roll around in my head before I smiled, reached over the table and pinched his cheek.

“Robby, I like it!” I grinned before he flinched.

“Riggs, my name is Riggs,” he insisted, eyes locking with mine. There was no playfulness when he looked at me this time and my smile faded instantly. “Robert is just a name written in ink on a birth certificate.”

My eyebrows furrowed, but I knew when to leave something alone and remained silent as I wondered why he was so hell bent on forgetting who he was.

What a pair we made, huh? He was running to forget his life, and I was running to find mine.

“What’s the matter, you don’t like pizza? Isn’t that like sacrilegious?”

I looked down at the barely touched pizza and lifted it to my lips taking a big bite. To hell with you, waitress. I chewed, watching the seriousness fade from his face to be replaced with the sly grin I was accustomed to. He picked up a napkin, reaching over to wipe the sauce from the corner of my mouth.

We finished our pizza, neither of us asked anymore real questions. The rest of our time together we kept light, mostly flirty banter back and forth. Afterwards he gave me a ride back to my brother’s house and when I climbed off his bike and handed him back his helmet I felt disappointment settle in. It wasn’t until I was inside the house, the door barely closed behind me when I heard the chime of my phone and knew Riggs and I weren’t finished. We were just getting started.

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