AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you’re going to throw the shoe, try to hit me and not anything else. Some of this stuff’s expensive,” I say.
She looks at the shoe and then at me. “Everything in this place has a hefty price tag, but I think the problem is, Ryder, you don’t know the worth of anything.”
“Bullshit.”
“You tell me you want the Sinclair jewels because of your family history and they mean something. You tell me you don’t want to lose the family flagship company for the same reasons, yet here you are, fucking about.”
She makes sense. She really does. But she’s utterly and spectacularly wrong. I take a step towards her. “First off, things in here are a mix. But just like the jewels and the company, I want them because they mean something. To me. I’m not an art collector. I got these pieces because I like them. Some of them remind me of places I went. Some of them are because of the artist. I don’t need to surround myself with hefty price tags to show the world I can afford them. I don’t give a fuck about what the world thinks. I don’t invite the world here. And what I told you about why I’m doing this is the truth.”
“Then stop fucking around.”
But,” I say, “there’s another truth with that. I don’t want the loss to be on my shoulders. I know that’s selfish, but hey, you knew that.”
She shakes her head and looks at the shoe again. “Then clean up your act, Ryder. Most people can keep it in their pants, can keep scandal at bay for a few weeks. For a few months. You’re not trying to get famous, you want something and yet you keep screwing up.”
“I kissed you.”
Color, deep red, flares in her cheeks and something in me twists. “Don’t.”
“Don’t kiss you.”
“Jesus, Ryder. You’re not that hard up.”
I frown. “What’s hard up with kissing you?”
“We don’t have an audience, so you don’t need to go there. We were meant to be practicing you handling yourself on the public stage, and if that’s really how you do it, then we really have a major problem.”
I shove a hand through my hair and stalk up to her. “I don’t go around just kissing people, Elliot. I kissed you. And…” I trail off. Fuck, I’m going to have to tell her. “I did it because I wanted to.”
“Great,” she says, spitting the word, “you get bored and let some stupid urge take you over because I’m the only female in the room.”
“Is that so bad?”
She stares at me like I’ve grown fangs and it hits me how that sounded, I go to say something, to explain, but she shakes her head. “Don’t dig your hole deeper, Ryder, otherwise you won’t be able to get out. And yes, it is bad. What woman, even one like me, wants to hear that?”
Frustration swells inside, tightening my throat and chest and I clench my hands because damn I want to grab her and I’m not sure if it’s to kiss or shake sense into her. Or if it’s just because I want to touch her. “A woman like you? One who thinks I’m beneath her?”
“No.” The scathing burns like acid. “What was the word you used? Oh, yes, frump.”
“You can’t be serious, Perry. I used that about your work clothes, not you.”
“So?”
“So…? You’re pretty, you should shine, I told you that.”
She turns from me, then swings back. “If this is you trying another rebuff then you suck at it. You need to be smooth with it, not try and jump someone and then awkwardly get out of it.”
“You’re the most deliberately obtuse and stubborn woman I know. I wasn’t rebuffing you then.”
“Good, because you suck at it.”
“Suck at what? Rebuffing? I haven’t really tried.”
Elliot pushes past me for her glass and takes it. I pluck it out of her hands and finish it because she’s pissing me off.
“Give me that.” She snatches it and grabs the whiskey and sloshes it into the glass, then she takes a huge swallow, turns red and coughs. “Oh, that burns.”
“Like you.”
