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‘You could have told me you’d sold your bordello before I stormed the place looking for you.’
Ah.
‘I would have if I’d known you were coming to visit, baby. You know how much I look forward to our little...assignations.’ He felt a smile tug at his lips. Stretching wider as her gaze loitered over his attire and a shiver racked her svelte frame.
‘Am I doing it for you tonight, Miss Scott?’ he asked, his voice a decadent purr.
She grimaced as if she were in pain. ‘If by “it” you mean making me regret the moment I ever laid eyes on you, then, yes, strangely enough you are.’
Aw, man, she was delicious. ‘How do you feel about dinner?’ It was a horrendous idea, but he suddenly had the urge to feed her. Fill out those over-slight curves.
‘You mean together?’
‘That’s a bit forward, don’t you think? But, yes, okay. I accept.’
Mouth agape, she slowly shook her head, clearly questioning his sanity. Oddly enough, that made two of them. ‘Did you attend some school specialising in becoming the most annoying and arrogant person ever?’
‘As a matter of fact—’
A tall blonde, dressed to the nines in a slinky red number, appeared from nowhere and motioned to the bathroom door. Finn stifled his irritation at her giving him the once-over and zeroed in on Serena as she clammed up, took a step back, and dipped her head until that glorious fall of hair veiled her face.
Unsure why it could be, but loathing the way she threw out distress signals, he curled his fingers around her upper arm and tugged her further along the hall to where the dim light imparted privacy.
Except every muscle in her arm tensed beneath his fingers and her gaze bounced off every surface until even he half expected someone to pounce.
‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘Peachy.’
She wrenched free and wrapped both arms across her chest. It was like watching someone erect guard rails.
Okay, so she didn’t want to be alone with him. Yet she’d been fine last night in his bedroom. What had she asked him for? Lights.
‘You don’t like the dark?’ For some reason it made him think back to that odd ramble of Tom’s—‘Protect her for me...she’s been through enough...’—and his fists tightened into hard balls of menace.
She bristled with an adorable blend of embarrassment and pique.
‘Hey, so you don’t like the dark? So what? Neither do I. When I was a kid I used to crawl into bed with my mum during power cuts, for Pete’s sake. Some hard-ass Spider-Man I was.’
She blinked over and over, until the fine lines creasing her brow smoothed. ‘Spider-Man, huh? Did you have the blue and red outfit too?’
‘Sure I did. And the cool web-maker.’
Her small smile lit the corners of the hall. Finn wanted it stronger, brighter.
‘Did you have a tutu or a Snow White dress? My baby sister had all that crap.’
She snorted. ‘I doubt Snow White wielded a wrench, and I don’t expect engine oil would wash out of a tutu very well.’
His every thought slammed to a halt.
Reared by men in a man’s world. No mother—he knew from Michael Scott that Serena’s mum had died giving birth to her. No sisters.
‘Have there been any women in your life?’
She gave a blithe shrug but he didn’t miss the scowl that pinched her mouth. ‘Only my dad’s playthings.’
‘Ah. I get it.’ The narcissistic variety. Or maybe weak, fawning versions Serena would have recoiled from. So naturally she’d kept with the boys, until, ‘You feel uncomfortable around women.’
‘No!’ She kicked her chin up defensively.
Finn cocked one brow and a long sigh poured from her lips.
‘I don’t know what to say to them, that’s all, okay? We have nothing in common.’
‘You’ve never had any girlfriends at all?’ The notion was so bizarre he couldn’t wrap his head around it.
‘Not really, no. Tom and I had long-distance schooling, and it was pretty rare to see girls hanging around the circuit.’
Finn kept his expression neutral, conscious that empathy wouldn’t sit well with her. Yet all he could think of was his sister, surrounded by girlfriends, and she’d had their mother through her formative years. He dreaded to think what Serena’s adolescence had been like. No shopping trips or coming-of-age chats, nor any of that female pampering stuff he’d used to roll his eyes at but which had made Eva fizz with excitement.
He was astonished that Serena had managed without a woman in her life. Had she been allowed to be a girl at all? And why exactly did that make anger contort his guts? They were nothing to one another; only hate coloured her world when she looked at him.
