Page 6 of My Secret Santa Dallas

Dallas snorted. “You’d have been better off spending three hundred on leather and rubber to make a nicer boot. I think Hanks General might have some better choices for you.”

My skin itched with the thought of something… general.

He snorted. “And that’s what I thought.”

I clenched my jaw. “And what is that?”

“You’re ready to break out in hives at the mere thought of touching something that does not have a name brand on it, specifically a European brand I’d never heard about,” Dallas said.

I kept my cool. “You’re right. Brunello Cucinelli, Cesare Attolini, and Salvatore Ferragamo are my favorites.” I took another sip. “You look like you shop at The Gap.”

“I don’t have eighty bucks to spend on a pair of jeans,” he replied. “I’m surprised you drink black coffee. I’d take you for one of those silk almond milk, mocha choca crap with extra cold foam and some caramel drizzle on the top.”

I wanted to bait him, like dangling a hunk of raw meat in front of an alligator or a hungry hyena.

“You forgot the extra chocolate syrup,” I smiled. “Black coffee is a taste I acquired years ago in college.”

“Ivy League?” He said, and why did he sound so… judgy about it?

“Rice University and Yale,” I added. “My B.A. was from Rice, M.A., and MSc from Yale.”

He crossed his legs, cup to his lips… and my eyes strayed to his jaw, his stubble dark even though his skin looked just rough enough for me.

If he kissed me, I’d feel that delicious rub against my skin…

I nearly choked.

Where had that thought come from?

“You grew up around here?” I asked. “Where did you go to school? Helena?”

“No,” he looked around the cupboard and took out a travel mug. “I studied in San Francisco, attending night school and working sixteen-hour days. It took me six years to get it, but I got it—” he took out the cup and poured his drink in while looking over at me. “—what about you? Where are you from?”

“My accent hasn’t told you already?” I baited.

His lip curled. “It has, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions. You’re from down south, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee on the outside. You’re old money and have never had to work anything but a curling iron or a computer keyboard in your life. You probably have a mama who told you to attend Cotillion and went to some fancy sorority house with a five-star chef.”

“Cotillion is outdated; I never went to that…” I said, pausing. “…mama did hire a slew of private tutors for me and my twin brother, though. He went on to take over the family company, and I found my way to Portman Corp.”

“Ah, that’s why,” he said smugly.

For once, in the back-and-forth, I had my backup. “And what do you mean by that?”

“You’re overcompensating for not being picked for your brother’s job,” he said. “You hate patriarchy and want to show that even if you don’t have that job, you can do much better. Does your brother have your degrees?”

“No.”

“What does he have?”

“A B.A. and in-house training,” I said, keeping the bitterness from my voice— or so I thought.

“That's my point,” he laughed and turned to the door.

Aggravated, I glared at his back, and it pissed me off even more when he didn’t seem to realize it. Even worse, I would have preferred it if he turned and glared back at me.

I didn’t know where he was going— but I didn’t care either. I needed to keep my composure, keep my head in the game, and not let that prick get under my skin. I may have been born into money and rubbed elbows with the crème-de-la-crème in New York, DC, and Los Angeles, but I could hold my own.

The door opened again while I was topping off my coffee, and in came two cowboys, a tall one with dark hair and a shorter one with light brown hair; they were talking, arguing, about a horse.

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