Page 10 of Imperfect Saint
“What?”
“Don’t call me that.” She found her voice and then cleared her throat to force away the pain that had sliced through her, “Please.”
“What?” Hunter tilted his head curiously, “Darlin?”
“Yes. Please don’t call me that.”
She expected him to ask why. She steeled herself to have to explain that her ex had called her darlin’ since they were just kids. It had been a term of endearment once upon a time, but when she heard it now all she heard was the condescending way he’d drawled it at her when he was telling her she was dumb or that she’d done something wrong.
Hunter surprised her when he shrugged, “Okay. What should I call you then?”
“How about…” She pretended to think for a moment and then snapped her fingers as if it had only just come to her, “Millie.”
He chuckled, “Funny. Come on. Hop in and we can discuss what my pet name for you should be during the drive.”
Millie was surprised yet again when he opened the passenger door for her though she couldn’t have said for sure why that was. Part of Hunter’s job was driving Lemon and he opened doors for their boss all the time. Whenever Millie had accompanied Lemon on outings, he’d held doors for her as well. It should have been a keen reminder that this was just another job to him, a favor to their mutual boss, and yet, when he smiled at her, she couldn’t help the small thrill that came with being the one at the center of his attention.
She moved to get into the SUV and felt Hunter’s big hand land on her lower back, guiding her in. She jumped, a small gasp of surprise escaping her at the innocent touch. It felt as if electricity flowed through her body from just that tiny contact and her cheeks heated with embarrassment when Hunter chuckled again. She scrambled away from his hand and into the passenger seat, focusing all of her attention on buckling her seatbelt but despite her willing him to shut the door and go to the other side of the vehicle, Hunter was still standing there when she finished with the task and glanced back up.
“Mills?”
“Huh?” She bit the inside of her cheek, sudden anxiety that she’d already messed this up making her voice soft when she looked up into those mysterious green and gold flecked eyes of his.
“We’re gonna have to work on that, beautiful.”
“On what?” She asked, struck dumb by the heat in his gaze… and had he just called her beautiful?
“You can’t jump out of your skin when I touch you if we want anyone at this wedding to believe we’re dating.” He reached out and softly pushed her hair behind her ear, “Millie, I’m going to touch you this weekend, a lot, unless you tell me not to.”
The seriousness of his expression held her captivated. He was so close to her she could smell the scent of leather and musk. It was intoxicating. She never let him get this close to her. Ever. She knew well enough after the debacle with Joshua to know that she had horrible taste in men. That meant any attraction she felt towards Hunter was a bad idea. She’d purposefully kept him at arm’s length for months yet here they were, two minutes into this stupid farce of a date and she was already yearning for things she shouldn’t want and couldn’t give into. Even knowing all of that she couldn’t get her mouth to form the words to tell him that she didn’t want him to touch her.
A small flash of a knowing smile crinkled the corner of his mouth and Hunter winked as he pulled away, “Good. Now that we’ve settled that, we should hit the road.”
Hunter shut the door and jogged around the front of the SUV while she continued to sit dumb and mute, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into this situation. Oh, right, she hadn’t. This was just another one of Lemon’s crazy plans. She never should have agreed to take a fake date to her brother’s wedding and she definitely shouldn’t have let Lemon be in charge of setting it up. The woman was a menace and as much as Millie loved her and looked up to her, she kind of wanted to strangle her friend when Hunter climbed into the driver’s seat and she found herself trapped in an enclosed space with him.
“Okay, Mills.” He shifted the car into drive and checked traffic before pulling out onto the street, “Where to, sweetheart?”
She blinked at him in confusion, choosing to ignore the endearment, “Lemon didn’t tell you?”
“Oh. She told me.” Hunter shot her a stern look out of the corner of his eye as he navigated the busy city street. “But considering we’ve been working together for over six months and you have never, not once, mentioned the fact that you’re one ofthoseTurner’s, I’d like to hear it from you.”
“You never heard it from me because I don’t throw around my family name as leverage.” Millie pursed her lips, instantly defensive. “It doesn’t impact my work or my relationship with Lemon or my other clients, and it certainly doesn’t impact our working relationship, so there was no need for you to know that I’m one ofthoseTurner’s as you so eloquently put it.”
Hunter snorted, “Damn you’re cute when you get all riled up.”
“I am not riled up.” Millie huffed.
“Just going to ignore I called you cute?”
He was grinning so Millie looked away to keep her own smile from showing, “Yep.”
“Fine. But for the record, knowing that you’re the only daughter of Chuck Turner and an heir to the Turner Bell fortune definitely would have impacted our relationship.” Hunter flipped the signal on to turn and then shot her another sideways look, “You may not want to trade on your last name but there are plenty of people out there that would and I should have known so that I could protect you properly.”
Millie stared at him for a long moment, surprised by his response, before she shook her head, “Your job isn’t to protect me. It’s to protect Lemon.”
“I never said protecting you was a job to me, babe.”
He’d caught her off guard once again and she found herself unable to muster a response. He didn’t seem angry that she’d kept the truth of her last name a secret from him. He seemed more annoyed that she hadn’t trusted him with the truth. The thing was, Millie never told anyone that didn’t outright ask that she was Chuck Turner’s daughter. That was one of the rules she’d set for herself when she decided not to go to work at the label and instead focus on her own career pursuits. She could understand why Hunter would feel he had a right to that information since many times he was on duty for Lemon while Millie was at her side, but then he’d blown that theory completely out of the water when he said that protecting her wasn’t about his job.
