Page 3 of Her Top Dog
“You idiot,” Cal said.
“I just mean… I um, I’m passing out samples for Guiseppe’s tonight. This is their tomato soup. It’s to die for. Try it.”
She gave me a curious glance, and I think I fell a little in love with her as she bypassed the small spoons sitting beside the sample cups on the tray and instead, lifted one of the paper cups to her lips, tipping her head back and drinking the soup directly from the cup. “Oh, that isgood.”
“All right, buddy,” Dom said in my ear. “You know what to do. Pick up that clipboard and get to asking those questions. Turn to page four.”
Goddammit.I cleared my throat. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions about the soup you just tried?”
“Not at all.”
“Great.” I lifted the clipboard and turned it over to look at the first question. Usually, we eased into the harder ones and threw some softball questions first.
Apparently, not this time.
I cleared my throat. Fuck.
“Okay,” I said. “Just to be perfectly clear…Idon’t write these questions. They, um, come from the retailer themselves.”
“Guiseppe’s,” she said with a nod.
Double fuck. The fact that I mentioned an actual, real restaurant could open us up to a lawsuit. Thankfully, I knew Guiseppe personally and I didn’t think he’d care. Even still… it was a sloppy mistake and I had no doubt that my producer would sit me down for a discussion about it.
“Right,” I said. “Anyway… How much of that soup were you able to swallow in the first sitting?”
Her face went blank. There was nothing about her that overtly changed or shifted… and yet, I felt the change.
“I’m sorry?”
I read the question again.
She glanced down at her sample-sized cup and showed it to me. “Um… all of it, I guess?”
I inhaled slowly and pretended to mark down her answer as the guys laughed in my ear.
“That’s right, Smurf,” Cal said. “We saw you eying her in that store. These questions are specifically for her, from you!”
God, I hated them. Then again, if I was on that side of the tent rather than the one conducting the prank, I would have done the same damn thing.
“Okay,” I said. “Question two. True or False.”Aw, shit. This was only question two?My neck twitched… my biggest tell when I was uncomfortable. “I like my soup how I like my men: Thick, creamy, and…” I winced. “sliding down my throat.”
I watched as her face tightened, that gorgeous mouth pinching into a tight scowl and somehow, impossibly, she was even more beautiful when she was angry. “What did you just say to me?”
I sighed. This was the job. I only hoped she had a sense of humor about it when all was said and done. “Do you need me to repeat the question?”
Her nostrils flared, and I noticed a spray of faint freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. “No. I don’t.”
“So, your answer is false? Cool.” I barreled through, wanting this to be over as fast as possible. And our rules state that if she doesn’t walk away, I have to continue. “Number Three.”Oh, boy. This was a doozy. “Have you ever gotten naughty with a cucumb—”
She didn’t let me get the question out and instead, she grabbed the remaining sample cups and dumped them over my head. Lukewarm tomato puree dripped down my forehead and neck.
Yep. That was about right.
Chapter 2
Nina
Who the helldid this asshole think he was, talking to me like that? And Guiseppe’s? My favorite restaurant in the whole damn city was behind this? That was a family place. It was where I took most of my clients, and I’d even convinced my firm to host the holiday party there last year.
