Page 22 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

That midnight gaze danced with humor as the ass-face murmured, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He totally did. And he absolutelywasbaiting me. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew it good and well. There was just this one problem. See, I had this tiny little character flaw: my pride reared its ugly head every time I was challenged, refusing to let me back down. It happened every. Single. Time.

As a teenager, Truth or Dare was absolute torture for me, because my friends knew I couldn’t refuse a dare. I’d had more broken bones than any kid I knew. It was part of the reason I bounced from foster home to foster home so often. The kids would spot my weakness, use it against me, and I’d quickly be labeled a “problem child” by my foster parents and shipped off to the next ones.

I wish I could say I’d grown out of that childish phase over the years...but that would have been a bald-faced lie.

“I’m not a coward,” I grumbled.

“Yeah? Then prove it,” he shot back. “If you’re not a coward, stick this date out.”

I didn’t understand what was happening just then. “Why in the world would you even want this sham of a date to carry on? You hate me. You should want to get out of this as badly as I do.”

“I never said I hated you.”

My chin jerked back, my jaw dropping in shock. “You absolutelyhavesaid that. On multiple occasions. Usually with an evil gleam in your eye that makes me scared for my life.”

“Well you’ve said it too,” he argued.

“Exactly!” Although, I wasn’t quite sure I’d meant it anymore. He had a real talent for pushing my buttons, but I wasn’t sure the hate I’d convinced myself I felt for him in the past was there any longer, or that it was even what I’d been feeling. God, I was a mess!

“I don’t hate you,” he said a second later, stupefaction rendering me mute. “You just piss me off like no one I’ve ever met, but I don’t actually hate you. Never have.”

“Oh. Well...okay.” My mind raced, trying to come to terms with everything he’d just said. I needed to unravel it so I could get to the hidden truth behind it. “Wait. Is this a new game? You want to trick me into staying so you can stick me with the bill when dinner’s over.”

His features hardened with frustration, taking on a stony quality that somehow made him look even hotter. For the love of God, was this man even capable of looking anything but sexy? “Christ, Layla. This isn’t a game.”

I narrowed my eyes incredulously. “Then what’s your angle?”

“There is no angle, for God’s sake. I’m not going to make you pay for dinner. I’m not even going to suggest we split the bill. It just isn’t who I am. If I’m out with a woman, I pay. Simple as that.” I felt some of the wind leave my sails. That was, until he spoke again. “But if you’re too scared to believe me, that’s fine too. I’ll walk you out and you can get an Uber home. But I’m going to stay and enjoy a nice, big steak.”

And there it was. He knew I couldn’t resist a challenge and was using it against me. The rat-bastard.

“I’m not scared of anything,” I shot back. I was full of shit, of course. I was scared of plenty, like spiders—especially those creepy as hell white ones with the milky transparent body. Oh, and clowns. Clowns were the fucking devil and should burn in the pits of hell for all eternity. But I wasn’t going to give him that ammunition to use against me.

Instead, I turned and started toward the hostess station so she could lead us to our table and we could finally get this damned night started. “Hope you brought your wallet, because I’m not one of those chicks who orders a side salad as a meal, buddy. I’m getting a steak the size of my head. Withtwosides of lobster.”

He chuckled as he followed closely behind me, and it took an act of God to suppress the shiver that wanted to crawl across my skin at the velvety sound of it.

Damn Jude Kingsley straight to hell!

11

Layla

Iwish I could say the date was a total bust, but that wasn’t true. Aside from the fact that I gorged myself to prove a point and now felt like I was going to have to be rolled out of the restaurant, it had been a good evening so far. Great, actually. Who’d have guessed that? Certainly not me, that was for damn sure.

It took both of us a few minutes to warm up to each other—me a little longer than him, since I was convinced there was another shoe somewhere in the background just waiting to drop—but as dinner progressed, the conversation began to flow, and with each passing minute, it got easier and easier.

He told me about the company he’d started from the ground up, and, as it turned out, being a landscape architect was so much more than I’d imagined. I had originally thought he was just a glorified gardener, but there was a whole hell of a lot more to it than that. He’d actually gone to college for his field of work, taking more science classes than any human being should be required to take, proving that the man not only had serious looks, but brains to back them up. He was an expert—at least in my eyes—in horticulture and botany, and when he talked about his schooling, he did it in a way that didn’t make me feel stupid, or like he had to dumb it down so I could understand.

I never in a million years would have thought listening to someone talk about plants would have been entertaining, but I’d been riveted.

“So what about you?” he asked before lifting the glass of scotch to his lips and taking a sip of the clear, amber liquid.

I lifted my own glass. I wasn’t much of a drinker, normally. I enjoyed an occasional glass of wine and an even less occasional cocktail like the mojito I’d had earlier, but dining at The Groves, enjoying the best filet in all of existence, required the rich, velvet smokiness of a fine scotch. The liquid caught fire in my mouth and heated its way down my throat into my belly, blooming outward and keeping me warm like the softest blanket. “What about me?”

“What do you do? I noticed you keep strange hours, usually with that gym bag, and more times than not, dressed in workout clothes. I’ve tried to guess, but I don’t think I got it.”

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