Page 53 of It Happened on a Sunday
“Is that your way of saying I look good?” I lean forward a little, as mesmerized by her as everyone else on the planet.
“Like you need me to tell you that.”
“What? A guy’s not allowed a little insecurity?” I ask.
“Somehow I doubt that guy is you,” she answers, her eyes lingering on my biceps.
So she’s an arm girl… Nice to know.
Before I can think of something else to say, she buries her face in the bouquet I brought her and breathes deeply.
“The flowers are gorgeous. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But they aren’t half as gorgeous as you.”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t realize we were bringing out all the cheesy lines today.”
“Hey, I’m just doing my part to keep things as superficial as possible,” I reply. “I didn’t think we were supposed to get deep with this many people trying to read our lips.”
“You forgot about the listening devices.”
“The what?” I glance around before I can stop myself and mistakenly catch several people’s eyes as they look quickly away—but not quickly enough. “You’re not serious.”
She lifts a brow. “Wanna bet?”
“I absolutely do not.”
“Don’t look so scandalized,” she tells me in a lazy sort of way. “It’s just the cost of doing business.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not doing business,” I shoot back.
She gives me a wry little twist of her lips. “You sure about that?”
“Actually, I am.”
It’s her turn to look startled—to let me in—if only for a second. But then the shields come back up, blocking her thoughts and every other piece of her from the world.
I’m beginning to hate that look, no matter how much I also understand it. A small, impatient part of me wants to figure out how to scale every single one of those walls, but the part that’s trying so hard to understand her knows that doing so will only hurt us both.
I have to wait for her to let me in.
“Would you like something besides water?” I ask. “Maybe something stronger?”
“I only drink water when I’m working out,” she tosses back. “Otherwise, I’m a bourbon girl—preferably Four Roses.”
As if by magic, our waiter appears. “On the rocks?” he asks.
“Neat, please,” Sloane responds in a voice that sounds a lot more slurred than it did just a second ago.
The waiter, however, doesn’t bat an eye. “And for the gentleman?”
“I’ll take an iced tea.”
“Certainly.” He fades away as quietly as he came.
“So whatever shall we talk about now?” she asks almost mockingly. “The weather? The view? How big your dick is?”
Well, that’s one way to break the ice. I watch as she wraps herself in barbed wire and dares me to reach in. I don’t know everything she’s been through, but I know enough to understand why trust doesn’t come easy for her. And why letting someone close probably feels a hell of a lot more dangerous than standing out there in front of the paparazzi.
