Page 24 of Crush

“This hasnothingto do with that. I promised your father I’d look out for you. Seeing you with that dick has made me realise that I failed to do that,” Max stated.

He was such a liar. “I think you’re lying. You’ve known my father all of two minutes, nobody is that loyal so quickly.”

“Once I make a promise, I keep it.”

Shooting him my best dagger eyes, I rested the back of my head on the door behind me. Maintaining eye contact was giving me a neck ache. From his stance, I wasn’t going anywhere yet. “I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s the truth. Promise me your driver will take you home at the end of dinner.”

“Or what? You’ll tell my father?”

“Imeanit, Amber,” he snarled, his nostrils flaring. He had no right to look so mad.

“Fine. I don’t get why you’re so moody about it. It’sjustdinner.”

“I’m always moody.” Finally, there was something I could agree with.Here lies a moody bastard,would be carved into his tombstone. “So, you’ll go back to the table and thank Hopton for a good evening and then go home? Yes?”

“Yes.” He was such a bossy fucker.

Max’s relieved expression felt too over the top and part of me wondered if hewasjealous. We both recognised there was chemistry between us. I pushed the damaging thought away.

“You’ve made the right decision. That dickhead isn’t the type of guy you’re used to, Amber. Under the surface I mean.”

Patronising swine! I sharpened my anger.

I quirked an eyebrow. “Not the type I amusedto? And how thehellwould you know that? You don’tknowme at all, not really.”

He gave me a head nod, his face still expressionless. “I know more than you think. The guy is beneath you.”

I dug my fingers into the section of hair pulled tight by my updo and massaged my head. “I must say, I didn’t see you as a snob,” I replied with a sigh of exasperation.

I saw a flare of annoyance. “I didn’t mean it like that. He started seeing the office junior at work last year whilst screwing around behind her back. He kept the boys at work entertained by bragging about it. Gave them all the details once he finally got Lily into bed. He was twenty and she was only sixteen.That’sone of the reasons I put the policy in place about dating colleagues.”

Oh.

To anyone else, that age difference wasn’t huge, she was legal but to me, it made me feel sick to my stomach. Repulsion fired through me and memories of my past gripped me by the throat. I turned my face to the side whilst I recovered.

I shouldn’t feel repulsed, it wasn’t the same situation at all. But playing around behind the girl's back was not on. If the girl resigned over it, he must have broken her heart,afterhe had slept with her. The bastard.

Max put a hand on my shoulder and gently shook my attention back, his eyes drilling into mine. “As well as that shit, you can’t hide from the fact that youaretitled. What do you think your father would do if he knew you were out with a tradesman from work?”

I gave him a tart reply and a shrug, “I have no idea. He’d probably shit a brick. Or maybe he’d be relieved that I was out with a normal, middle-of-the-road type of guy.”

“You don’t come across as a girl who would settle for middle of the road,” Max scoffed.

His jab that he thought me a picky cow pissed me off. “Really. How so?”

Max raised his eyebrows and took a step back, pinning me with a look of surprise. “Youreallywant me to go there?” No, I wanted to thump him in his godly face. First for him spoiling my evening and second for making me think about my past.

I ran my tongue over my teeth. At that point, Ineededto know his opinion of me. “Yes. Go on, I can take it.”

Max’s smirk made my belly flip and he removed his hands from his pockets, allowing him to gesticulate his insults.

“OK. You’re used to having the best of everything and second best, just doesn’t cut it. You’re bossy and stubborn, you’ve never had a job and treat work like your own personal playground. You’re uptight and when backed into a corner, you lash out unnecessarily. You also think asking for help is beneath you. So, in a nutshell, you’re high maintenance. Therefore, he’s not the man for someone like you. Although saying that, you’d probablyterrifyhim so much that he’d neverdarecheat on you.”

“I see. Sounds like you have my measure,” I snarked with a headshake. When said aloud, I soundedawful, especially when most of that was correct. But of course, thatwasn’tthe real me. That was the image I portrayed on purpose. The character I had created.

“As well as being a mouthy twat, Rory Hopton is also as dull as shit. You’d have very bland children.”

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