She thoughtlessly sits down and sighs. “Good, because I want to give all of this my full attention.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me because I could eat.” I take the chair at her side and feel her heavy stare on me.
“Did you not like what you picked out at dinner?”
It’s not exactly what I wanted.
I glance over at her, the look of worry laced on her pretty features and I give her a reassuring smile. “You know I’m always hungry every thirty minutes. That hasn’t changed.”
She leans to her right and looks down at my ass. “Where do you keep it all?”
“Not in my ass,” I chuckle, opening up the container in front of her. “Geezus…wasn’t it you that bitched about HR?”
“You started it.”
“And I’ll finish it,” I promise her. “Don’t challenge me, Laynee. I’m still a competitive asshole, and my appetite hasn’t been sated since the last time you and I were in a hotel room shittier than this. Except I had less clothes on, and you used to love me.”
And there’s that fetching glare I was waiting for.
“Cal…” Her eyes slit so harshly I’m surprised she can still see me. “Don’t start.”
“Which part?”
“You know which part.” She clutches her plastic fork so tightly that her knuckles start to turn white.
I nod at her weapon that I have no doubt she’d stab me with. “You lookin’ to catch a charge, Laynee, or is that a kink for you?”
“Charge.”
“Mhm…” I reach up and run my thumb along my bottom lip, contemplating how ballsy I’m feeling right now. “Blood is gonna be the last thing that scares me at this point in my life.”
“Murder someone, Cal?” She spits out my name like a bad taste in her mouth, but the only flavor I’m interested in is the one between her legs or between her snarky little lips that don’t want to give me a fucking break.
Thing is, I have.
I’ve killed men.
I may have killed some women, shit, I don’t fucking know. It’s definitely not something I want to think about when Laynee’s in the room, but her question isn’t one that I can answer without more of them being shot my way.
I point at her food. “Eat. You’re getting cranky.”
She punctures a piece of lobster with the semi-sharp edges of her fork, shoving it into her mouth where her murderous eyes still stay faithfully glued to me.
“So besides being a big CEO and building off your dad’s legacy,” Laynee says after a few comfortable minutes have passed to where she can talk about something else. “What else have you been doing over the years?”
“Nothing worth writing about.”
“So that’s why you stopped writing.”
“No, I stopped writing because we had cell phones and I didn’t have to wait a full week or more for an answer.”
“Ever been married?” My body tenses at her question because I’m still waiting to see if I lost a child.
At this point, I could give a fuck about her loser wannabe husband. I’ll allow karma to bite him in the ass eventually. It’s going to take too much of my energy, and I want to use it all on Laynee.
But it’s the almost mere fuck-up that I almost committed that makes me tense.
“Married, no,” I answer. “You?”