Page 285 of Small Town Firsts
My head was full of white noise.
“Are you listening to me? Preston.” I glanced up as she leaned over to place her hand on my arm. “Are you all right?”
Same white-hot electric reaction as earlier, I noted dully.
I had to tell my mother.
She couldn’t live with a lie. I couldn’t be complicit in it.
“Preston,” Ryan said gently, curling her fingers around my rock-hard forearm. It felt as if all my muscles were locked for battle. “Look at me for a second.”
I looked. I didn’t know the source of the power she held over me, but the glow of it radiated from her jeweled eyes. Somehow she eased my stampeding heartbeat and cooled the sweat that had already pooled at the base of my spine.
All at once, I was steady. And back to idiotic.
“Did you put a sex hex on me? I didn’t finish Googling.”
For a long moment, she just stared back. Then the corners of her lips twitched.
“No. I don’t know what exactly that is, although it sounds intriguing.”
“I may have made it up. I just want you to know I don’t act like…this.”
I wasn’t the same as my father, coming on to my employees. I didn’t take advantage of my position.
I wouldn’t.
More twitching.“This?”
“I don’t banter. I don’t eat pastry out of strange women’s hands. And I normally wouldn’t try to pretend my father isn’t with a woman who isnotmy mother eating shrimp and probably figuring I can handle his divorce, because hey, that’s my specialty, right?” I let out a bitter laugh and spread my napkin over my lap as our server returned. I couldn’t seem to add the appalling bonus level slight of a clandestine workplace romance.
Much to my shock, Ryan took a cursory look at the menu and ordered for both of us. Worse? The orange chicken she chose for me was my favorite dish here. And she did not order whitefish, but a medium rare steak.
The last thing she asked for was a bottle of Riesling from a local winery, Apothecary Wines. I would’ve protested that business lunches didn’t include alcohol, if I didn’t currently have bigger issues in my life.
Like my happy childhood going up in flames.
I refused to look past Ryan’s shoulder in their general direction. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, the faithless bastard.
“Stop looking prune-faced. I didn’t steal your balls and offer them up as garnish. I just ordered for us because you needed a minute. Don’t fret.” She patted the back of my hand. “You’re still the alpha cock, darling.”
Stuck between a laugh and a grimace, I pointed at her. “You’re never to say that word in my presence.”
She caught her tongue between her teeth. “Which?”
“You know which. Bad enough you said it on that podcast.”
“Oh, yeah? You listened to all of my golden cock reading?”
I glanced around then decided I didn’t give a shit if some of these upper crust-types heard us discussing dicks with our lunch. Apparently, my give a damn had busted upon seeing my sneaky father. “I listened. It said you were going to get lucky. Has that happened yet?”
“Not the lucky part yet, but I’m beginning to wonder,” she muttered. “Gotta say it doesn’t look the way I figured it would.”
The server returned with our Riesling and a couple of glasses. Once she’d poured and left again, I took a long sip and decided the sweet apple and pear finish was just what this meal needed. And quite possibly, my sanity. “I normally have one glass of bourbon a week.”
“Oh, no.” She smacked her cheek. “A rule broken in the big book of them?”
“I had a glass and a half this morning. Wonder why?”
