Page 57 of Pucking Billionaire

“Can I taste it?” I ask Sophia when the waitress leaves.

Her cheeks turning red, she glares at me. “Taste what?”

“The mocha.” I suppress a chuckle that almost sends my tomato juice up my nose. “What did you think I meant?”

She turns redder than my juice, confirming that she thought I wanted to taste her. The thought of it makes me hard… or more accurately, harder.

“Sorry.” I grin, feeling anything but. “I meant the coffee, of course. I was just reading an article about how good coffee is for one’s health—assuming you only drink it before noon.” And don’t have milk and sugar in it, but saying that would sour this particular olive branch.

She snorts. “Is that reverse psychology?”

I cock my head. “What do you mean?”

“You say something that’s bad for me is a health food and hope I won’t want it anymore. Or do the reverse and claim that kale rots your teeth.”

“No. Coffee really is good for you. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a bean. It’s already known to help athletic and cognitive performance, but as it turns out, it also protects against chronic diseases and lowers the risk of cancer.”

“Huh.”

“And so, I’ve been meaning to try it,” I say.

“Wait.” She stares at me incredulously. “You’ve never had coffee?”

Great. Another one. Like I haven’t already been teased endlessly about this by my teammates.

I shake my head. “I tasted espresso when I was a kid, and it was bitter, so I didn’t see the need to do it again… until that article.”

She considers this for a second. “I had the same experience with beer and also haven’t had any since then.”

Huh. “Maybe people should give kids things that they don’t want them to consume later in life.” Like sugar, I almost say, but stop myself in time.

“It would have to be a bitter substance,” she reminds me. “Else the plan might backfire.”

Shit. So my sugar idea is a bust anyway. “I can’t think of many things that are bitter and bad for you. Beer might be the only one, actually.”

“What about chocolate?” she says.

“If it’s dark, it’s good for you,” I say. “I put some on my salads.”

She blinks at me. “Dark chocolate… on salad?”

“Why not?”

She shrugs. “I guess it’s not all that different from putting chocolate into mole sauce. But still. Sounds obscene.”

“It’s delicious, I assure you,” I say. “Or I put it into my smoothies instead.”

“Smoothies, of course.” She shakes her head. “The closest I’ve gotten to one of those is a slushy.”

I don’t take the bait. “I’m sure the chef could make one for you.”

She looks around. “Speaking of chefs and restaurants, why did you come here? I thought you’d be at the one from last night.”

“I figured you’d think that, which is why I came here.” And got the chef to make me this tofu scramble I’m currently enjoying, one which looks enough like an egg scramble to avoid a repeat of the perilous diet-related conversation—a strategy that clearly didn’t bear any fruit.

Sophia gestures around the place. “Where is everyone?”

I might as well rip off that Band-Aid. “I wanted us to have privacy regardless of which restaurant we ate at, so I booked all the suites.”

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