Page 61 of Hooked
“Yes. He smells very nice.” She leaned closer. “And he smells even nicer when he’s worked up a sweat.”
“Lucky bastard,” Tobin muttered.
She’d only said it to irritate Tobin, but Tayla realized it was true. Jeremydidalways smell nice. Even when they’d been hiking. She put it down to good body chemistry and diet, because no man she’d ever met smelled niceallthe time.
And now she was thinking about Jeremy after she’d just had one of the best business meetings of her life. The server set down another dirty martini. Jeremy liked dirty martinis.
Shit.
Tobin must have picked up on her sudden melancholy. “So what is your mountain man going to think about you working at SOKA, huh? You think you could get him to move to San Francisco with you?”
Jeremy in San Francisco? Tayla let out a hard laugh. “Yeah… no. I don’t think that’s on the table.”
“Poor little rich girl.” Tobin leaned back in the booth as Tayla started her second drink. “So many choices. Looks like you have some decisions to make.”
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Chapter Fourteen
After Tobin propositioned her,Tayla hadn’t wanted to crash at his place. She’d racked her brain for more options, but she couldn’t come up with anyone who would let her stay with them at the last minute, so she decided to remain at her parents’ house. She’d been there for three days before she saw her father.
They nearly ran into each other walking out their bedroom doors.
“Oh.” Tayla blinked. “Hi.”
“Tayla.” Her father frowned. “I didn’t realize you were home.”
“I didn’t realize you were home either. How’s the club?”
He was oblivious to sarcasm, as usual. Or he simply didn’t acknowledge it. “It’s fine. Why are you in the city? Have you moved back?”
“No. I was here for a job interview with a new fashion company.”
He straightened his cuffs. “That sounds fun. Does it pay as much as an accounting position at my firm?”
“I have no idea, but since I’m still not interested in an accounting position at your firm, I don’t really see the relevance of your question.”
His stiff smile was as familiar to her as his indifference. “I noticed you haven’t touched the balance in your trust fund lately.”
“Not since I bought the car.” The trust fund was something her father brought up often and she tried to ignore. “Did you have a question about the management of my personal finances?”
“Just a curious inquiry.”
“I see.”
Her father resented that her maternal grandparents had set up sizable trust funds for their four grandchildren and Tayla had no need for her parents’ money. She didn’t have any resentment about her trust fund—her grandparents had been good people and had earned honest money—but she didn’t think about it much.
The trust fund wasn’t enough to live on for the rest of her life or anything—especially not in San Francisco—but it meant she could take a shit job every now and then without having to worry about it. She’d always imagined that when she wanted to buy a house, she’d tap into it. Until then, it sat quietly accruing interest.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew how fast money could fly away. No one outside her family knew about her money. Not even Emmie.
“So what are you doing today?” she asked her father. “Mom was talking about an exhibit she wanted to see at the botanical gardens.”
“That sounds like a nice thing for you to do.”
“What about you?”
Her father looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “I’m working, Tayla.”
