Page 11 of Lovers Fate

I lean across the bar, squeezing my tits together. “Is that the best you can come up with?” His eyes lift.

I arch a brow. “Harley?”

He leans close, one foot flat on the ground, still perched on his seat. I can see him better in the glow of the red lights under the bar. He has a goatee. His shirt is open at the throat, revealing a bit of chest hair the same color as the black hair on his head.

He could be my father, and if he knew what I did to the last one, he would run the fuck out of here and never come back.

“Do you like it?” he asks hopefully.

I meet his gaze. “I don’t need to like it. It’s what you want to call me.”

“Oh, I was hoping you did.”

“Why is that?” I ask.

His eyes dip to my chest. “You should like what a man calls you when he looks at you the way I am now.”

When he notices me staring at his wedding ring, I playfully tilt my head and smile. “You mean the way you look at your wife you have tucked away somewhere?”

“She’s not as captivating as you.”

“Is that what you tell all the women here?”

He shakes his head. “No, just you. You have an innocent look about you. Ingenuous.”

The bartender snorts, but he ignores her and acts like he didn’t hear it. I bet he told her the same thing.

I stare at him for a minute. The music changes to a techno beat, taking over the silence that stretches between us for a few seconds.

Then I laugh, tilting my head back as if he’s just shared a hilarious joke.

“What’s so funny?” he says with a jittery smile.

If he only knew who he was talking to.

My face grows serious. “That you think I’m innocent when I’m sitting almost naked at a bar.”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, and slides the money across the bar with two fingers toward me, stopping about halfway. “I think cash is always welcome. What would you do for it?”

My eyes drop to his hand holding the money hostage like I’m a dog desperate for a treat, and he knows it. But the thing about dogs is, if they’re hungry enough, they bite the hand that feeds them.

“It wouldn’t matter if I take it, would it?”

“And how would you do that?” he counters.

“You wouldn’t have taken it out if you hadn’t planned on giving it to me in a place where any other woman here would do anything for less.”

“Ingenuous and sharp.”

“How would you know? We just met.”

He smiles wide, but it’s crooked. Like someone punched his face hard enough and damaged it.

“Lucky guess.”

“Lucky isn’t what I would call it,” I say with disinterest.

Feeling bored, I lean back on the barstool and look around.

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