Page 8 of Stunner (Whiskey Dolls 3)

He lifted a solitary brow, using facial muscles I’d never mastered. “What?”

“You’re being nice to me. You can’t stand me, but you’re being nice to me, so I can only assume it’s because you pity me, and I don’t like it.”

He crunched off another bite of toast, chewing slowly as he regarded me, casual and unhurried. He remained so damn calm I felt like I was coming out of my skin. We watched each other in complete silence as the seconds ticked by, the only sound Gus’s panting. Finally he spoke, and his words were just as maddening as the silence. “I don’t recall ever saying I couldn’t stand you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You didn’t have to. You haven’t exactly been supportive of my relationship with Jackson.”

He popped the last bite of toast into his mouth as he studied me in that infuriatingly blasé way. “What did you want me to do, throw you a parade?”

Momentarily forgetting the pounding headache, I started to roll my eyes and had to abandon the motion halfway through when my stomach revolted at the sharp spike of pain that lanced through my eyeballs. “Don’t be glib, you know that’s not what I meant. I would have settled for you simply being nice to me.” I pointed an accusing finger at his stupidly handsome face. “And Jackson told me you tried talking him out of proposing. You said it was a mistake, that we weren’t a good fit.”

I’d expected denial, or maybe contrition at the least, but I should have known better. Those types of emotions weren’t in Owen Shields’s wheelhouse. “First of all, telling you that was a dick move, there was nothing to be gained by you knowing I’d said that, and he knew it. Second, that had nothing to do with whether I like you or not. I was simply stating a fact.” He held up a hand to stop me when I opened my mouth to argue. “You know I’m right,” he said with certainty. “Most women who’d been dumped at the altar would be curled up in a ball, sobbing theireyes out from a broken heart. That’s not what you were feeling yesterday.”

Indignation churned in my belly, not to be mistaken for the mild nausea I was still feeling thanks to the hangover from hell. “Don’t tell me what I feel. You don’t have the first clue. You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than you think.” He leaned forward, the certainty making that green in his eyes spark, causing my breath to go shallow and my heart to race. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you weren’t starting to feel suffocated at the end there. Tell me you weren’t starting to realize you and Jackson had serious compatibility issues.”

“I don’t—that’s not—” I pursed my lips and blew out a long, frustrated raspberry, throwing my arms up in defeat. “Okay, you may have a point. So what? That doesn’t mean you haven’t spent the past year and a half being cold and insufferable.” He watched me over the rim of his coffee cup as he drank, and that was when I noticed the angry red scrapes and faint bruising around his knuckles. I sucked in a worried gasp. “What did you do to your hand?” My eyes went big as realization dawned. “Please tell me you didn’t pick a fight with one of those bikers from last night.”

He arched a single brow. “You mean your self-appointed bodyguards?” I couldn’t help but smile at that while he set his mug down and looked to his hand, clenching and flexing his fingers as if testing them. “No. Don’t worry. It wasn’t one of your new bestest buddies.”

“Then who?”

He did another clench and flex as he sipped more coffee. “This would be courtesy of your fiancé’s face.”

“Ex-fiancé. And seriously?”

“Yep.”

“But . . . why?”

He tilted his chin toward the plate I’d yet to touch. “I’ll tell you all about it”—that single brow went up again as he stressed—“while you eat.”

Eager for the story, and honestly for the eggs, because they smelled surprisingly good, I cut into the sunny yellow yolk and forked up a bite, chewing slowly to make sure my stomach would handle it before swallowing it down with a gulp of coffee. I bit off a huge chunk of toast, suddenly ravenous now that I knew I could keep food down, and ordered, “Spill, Shields,” through packed cheeks.

“It happened when he told me he was bailing.” He paused, allowing me time to wince at that information and a few more seconds to let it roll through me before inevitably letting it go. “We got into it when he said he was just going to take off. I said he needed to sac up and talk to you first. He didn’t like that much. Ended up punching him in the face.”

My mouth dropped open so fast it was a wonder I didn’t crack my chin on the countertop. “Youpunchedhim?”

“He was being a dick.”

“So, you punched him,” I repeated as a statement that time. Wow, I thought. Owen Shields was full of surprises. This was just another in a rapidly growing list of kind things he’d done for me in the past twelve hours. “Thank you. I mean, in a perfect world, it would have been me clocking him for being such a cowardly piece of shit, but if I couldn’t get the chance, I’m gladsomeonedid. Thank you.”

His lips pulled into a thin, tight wince. “Don’t thank me just yet. Eat more.”

I finished off one egg and started on the second as I asked, “Why not?”

“Because the slippery bastard snuck out the bathroom window after telling me he was going to clean up the split lip I gave him. If I’d kept my cool, he wouldn’t have had the chance.”

Sucking back more coffee, I was thankful the caffeine was starting to dull the throbbing bassline in my head. “Don’t blame yourself about that.” With a sigh I admitted, “That wedding wasn’t going to happen no matter what.” I pursed my lips in exasperation at his arched look. “You were right, okay? No, I’m not heartbroken over a lost love. To tell you the truth, if he hadn’t behaved like a spineless toad, all I would have felt was relief. It was how everything played out that didn’t sit well with me.”

“Of course not. At the very least, the asshole should have sent you flowers.”

I let out a surprised bubble of laughter. “Exactly.Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the altar. Hope these roses cheer you up.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Owen conceded.

“I was pissed and embarrassed that the guy I was supposed to pledge myself to had so little respect for me, the bastardjumped out a window. That’s why I took off and got shitfaced.”

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