Page 35 of Colton's Last Resort

“I don’t know. Who ended things there?”

“I did,” she said without thinking.

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m sensing a pattern.”

“Should I have stayed with someone with a wandering eye?” she asked.

“The son of a bitch cheated?” he said, voice going low.

“Yes.”

“He cheated. On Laura Colton.”

Exasperated, she repeated, “Yes.”

“What an ass.”

“Charming,” she commented.

“Sounds like he was charmless.”

“Dominic has a great deal of charm,” she explained. “The problem came when he employed it elsewhere. We’re off topic.” She tried to think of another question for him. The ink peeking out from underneath the collar of the jacket drew her gaze. “How many tattoos do you have?”

“I stopped counting.” When her eyes widened, he asked, “Is that too many for you?”

“No,” she said. She’d never known someone with too many tattoos to count. “Which one is your favorite?”

“I don’t have a favorite,” he claimed.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” she told him. “Even Francis Bacon had a favorite painting.”

“Who?”

She redirected the conversation again. “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

“Okay,” he said. “Morning or night?”

She frowned. “Really? You think that’s relevant?”

“It would be,” he weighed, “if we were really into each other.”

“Ask something else,” she demanded.

“Fine,” he consented. “What’s your drink of choice? No, let me guess. White wine spritzer.”

“Martini,” she corrected. “Dry. Yours?”

“A boilermaker.”

“That’s not a real thing,” she assumed.

“Yes, it is. It’s a glass of beer with a shot of whiskey.”

“You can’t have one, then the other?”

“I like to multitask.”

Trying to plumb the depths of this man was more difficult than she had imagined. Noah didn’t have quills. He had a hide like a crocodile.

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