Page 78 of Daddy's Wild Girl

“I’m good, thanks, Hopper. You?” Bebe replied.

“Yeah, nah, I’m good.” He waved cheerfully and kept moving through the crowd.

“Yeah, nah?” Corbin asked.

“He’s a Kiwi. It’s a strange saying they have. I still haven’t worked out exactly why they say it like that. And sometimes it seems to mean yes and sometimes it seems to mean no.” Sheshook her head, smiling at him as she took another sip of her drink.

Fuck. Why did that look so sexy?

Why did everything she did seem sexy?

And how could he get her out of here and somewhere private where he could . . . whoa, client!

Remember, she’s a client.

Corbin sucked in a breath, then spotted something strange over her shoulder.

“What’s that? Why is there a tree in a pub?”

“Um, because it’s the wishing tree, silly.”

“Right. Uh-huh. Of course it is. Because every basement pub on the bad side of town with employees called Shakespeare and Churchill needs a wishing tree.”

“They do when it grant wishes. Come see.” She slid off her chair and nearly fell onto her bottom, her foot catching against the leg of the stool next to her.

He caught her against him, her drink sloshing onto his shirt.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” she cried. “I’m so stupid and clumsy! I can get that stain out. Really, I can. What an idiot!”

Whoa.

Where had all of that come from?

Was she trembling? It spun his head how fast she could go from confident and sassy to scared and unsure.

And it made him wonder why. Who was the real Bluebelle? This reckless, wild girl? The scared, uncertain girl? Or something in the middle?

“Look at me. Look at me, Bebe,” he said sternly, needing her attention.

Her gaze rose from where it had fixated on the stain to meet his eyes. He hated how watery those gorgeous blue eyes of hers were. They should only ever be filled with joy and happiness.

Taking her half-empty glass, he set it aside for her.

“It’s just a stain. It’s not the end of the world. I’ll wash it out or I won’t. No big deal. What is important is you.”

“Me?”

Why the hell did she look so shocked by that?

Urgh.

She made him want to interrogate her until she told him every awful thing that had ever happened in her life. Every person who had hurt her.

And then he was going to hunt them down and make them pay.

“Yes, you,” he said firmly. “You are what is important. Not a damn shirt. Did you hurt yourself?”

“Hurt myself?”

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