Page 24 of Bad & Bossy

And something told me she wouldn’t dare consider anything more with me until I apologized.

Everything I ordered, sans the water instead of the whiskey sour, was what I always requested when I came here. A house salad, bread to share, a filet mignon cooked medium rare, dauphinoise potatoes, and asparagus. Dana had taken longer than I expected to choose something, and when she’d asked what I recommended, I couldn’t give her a genuine answer. The truth was I had no idea what to recommend—I was too much a creature of habit to be able to suggest anything else.

In the end, she ordered the blackened tilapia with lime and coriander rice, a side of Mediterranean mixed vegetables. She shot me another scowl as she handed the menu over to the waitress. “You’re paying,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Did you think for a second I’d ask you to cover your half?” I scoffed. “You’re my employee. This is… loosely considered work. I wouldn’t have let you pay if you tried.”

Her gaze lingered on my lips for half a second too long to be natural. “Thanks, then.”

Thanks. My throat closed in and I tried to contain my shock. I couldn’t imagine a world in which she said that to me outside of the bedroom, but here we were. Having a conversation with her in a restaurant was awkward, to say the least.

“You didn’t have to do this, you know. I could have handled being around you without the awkwardness of dinner,” she said, a sneaky little smile crossing her lips. “I’d say I’ve done a fairly good job of avoiding you when I need to.”

I tilted my head side to side, weighing up her words. “True. But then you wouldn’t have had this spectacular not-a-date with me.”

She snorted, her hand instinctively covering her mouth and nose. “Spectacular is certainly one way to put it.”

“Well, you know, had you actually dressed up instead of wearing pajamas maybe it could have been truly spectacular,” I laughed, my eyes dragging over her far too beautiful frame and the gorgeous dress that covered it. Teasing had always come easy with her.

Her mouth popped open in faux disgust. “Well if you hadn’t shown up in just your boxers, maybe I’d have dressed for the occasion,” she giggled, the tips of her fingers grazing the edge of my suit jacket’s sleeve. Her lips curled into a positively shining grin, little specs of shimmer catching the light from her deep red gloss.

God dammit, I wanted to kiss her.

Our food arrived a moment later. We spoke idly as we ate, mostly about work and the people who had been hired on in my absence. She filled me in on the drama between tour guides, how one of the newbies was more intense than the rest, and insisted on taking as many people as he could in one group. She told me about how a woman had leaned so far over the railing on the overhead walkway of the brewhouse, about how panicked she was knowing I was twenty feet below. I hadn’t been aware of what was happening though I do remember looking up at her from the floor, watching her anxious face as she stared back at me. I hadn’t even realized.

Despite the elephant in the room, I was genuinely surprised at how easy it was to speak to her. We’d always gotten along well since that first time I’d met her in Lottie’s backyard, but we didn’t have weights on our shoulders then. As simply two people who had just met, we meshed almost too well.

The more she offered me stolen glances and gentle, barely there smiles, the more I lost my hold on myself. I touched her, my fingers just barely grazing her knuckles, and she hadn’t recoiled. I wondered if she was fighting demons over what was happening, but if she was, they mustn’t have been too hard to overcome—she touched me back just as eagerly. A knee and a forearm against mine as she laughed while she told me something her manager had said to her days before. I hadn’t even caught what it was. I was too transfixed in how agonizingly beautiful she looked as she tipped her head back in a fit of giggles, her shoulder bumping against mine, her grin unmistakably genuine.

God, I’d fucked up with her.

I was moving before I even realized it. In the same way I used to end up with a drink in my hand without remembering pouring it, I was crowding her, my hand around the back of her neck, my lips against hers. I didn’t remember the journey but I didn’t regret it, either. Not when the stiffness in her body softened, not when she melted against me far too eagerly. Her lips tasted of blackened seasoning and strawberries, an odd combination from her dinner and her lip gloss, but I didn’t mind.

The sound of a plate being set down on the table in front of us didn’t faze me as I pressed my tongue between her lips, parting them. She didn’t protest, instead welcoming me like a long-lost friend, a haven in a storm, a glass of whiskey to my aching chest.

This wasn’t good for us. I knew that. Not when we had history between us.

She pulled back, just enough that her lips parted from mine but our breaths still mixed. Almost reluctantly, her eyes fluttered up to mine, a look of resignation hanging over her. “My sister’s staying with me,” she breathed.

I studied her eyes. What the fuck does that mean?

“Can we go to your place instead?”

Chapter 8

Dana

Iknew I was making one of the worst decisions of my life. I knew it the moment he’d kissed me and I didn’t push him away, knew it in the forty-minute car ride out to god-knows-where, knew it as I stepped onto the gravel driveway and looked up at the monstrosity of the home before me. It was like something out of Beverly Hills or Malibu, tucked into the corners of the mountains. A massive estate with floor-to-ceiling windows, large, ornate pillars, expertly maintained shrubbery, and a goddamn infinity pool.

I knew it when he’d taken me inside and the double staircase took up half of the foyer. I knew it when he’d lead me up the stairs and through the winding halls, when the double doors to his massive bedroom opened up, when my dress hit the floor.

He kissed me hungrily, his hands grasping at my waist and jaw as if he were afraid I’d run. I wondered why he hadn’t brought me here a year ago, wondered if he even owned this then, but in fairness we were so desperate at the time that it probably wouldn’t have even fazed me. Now, though, as the doubts and worries sunk into the pit of my stomach, I couldn’t help but notice how different this house was.

This place, this home, didn’t smell of booze. He didn’t smell of booze. He hadn’t had a single drink the entirety of dinner, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was planning on drinking like last time after I’d fallen asleep.

My decision to go home with him may not have been the best one but I was lonely. I was a single mom, constantly on the go, too busy for men and their bad habits to consider taking time for myself. But I wanted, needed, to feel desired. I hadn’t slept with anyone since Cole, and with memories from the last time he’d fucked me still fresh on my mind, I knew he’d do a damn good job of making me feel like I was more than just a one-night stand. Even though that’s what this was.

His mouth left mine to explore my neck, his heavy breaths warming my skin. My fingers traced the lapels of his suit coat and latched on, pushing it back and over his shoulders. It fell to the ground in a heap beside my dress.

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