Page 336 of The Tempted

I rolled my eyes and dug into my breakfast as my phone rang inside my pocket book.

“It’s my brother,” I said, swiping my thumb across the screen to answer it.

Riggs clasped his hands, rubbing them together excitedly, his grin firmly in place.

“Go ahead, answer it,” he encouraged. “Put it on speaker,” he added.

Crazy.

“Hi, Ant,” I said, lifting a piece of bacon from Riggs’s six plates and took a bite.

“Lau, listen, I got bad news,” he started.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked knowingly, as I peered out the window into the parking lot and looked at my car.

“I had the car brought to a mechanic,” he continued, as Riggs covered his mouth trying his hardest not to laugh.

“It’s worse than we thought?” I asked, playing along. Because if you couldn’t beat them why not join them.

Riggs, dropped his hand from his mouth, leaned over the table and kissed my lips quickly.

“Marry me and have my babies,” he whispered, pleased with my eagerness to taunt my brother.

Crazier.

“Not exactly,” Anthony said. “Your car is missing from the lot. I don’t know how it happened and Pipe is trying to get a hold of Riggs so they can play back the surveillance cameras,” he growled into the phone.

I could picture the veins bulging at his temple as he tried to hold his composure and had to admit, Riggs was onto something, busting Anthony’s chops could be fun.

“That’s funny, because I’m looking at my car right now,” I said, smiling because it was hard not to when the man in front of me had such a contagious grin.

“Lauren, what are you talking about?” Anthony asked, annoyed.

Riggs leaned over and took the phone from my hand.

“Hey, boss man! What’s shaking?”

“Riggs, what are you doing with my sister?”

“Just dropping her car off, runs like a dream. You should throw Pipe an extra hundred for doing such a good job. Or you could just give it to me when you see me, you know, for my services,” he said, winking at me.

“Put Lauren on the phone, NOW,” Anthony shouted into the phone.

“Oh, calm down, will you? And I will only give her back the phone if you promise not to yell at her,” he antagonized, as he shoved a piece of toast into his mouth.

“PUT LAUREN ON THE PHONE RIGGS,” he yelled again, causing everyone in the diner to turn around and look at what the commotion was all about. I grabbed my phone, hastily taking him off speaker and put the phone back to my ear.

“Ant, you’re making a scene,” I whisper-yelled into the phone.

“I’m making a scene? How am I making a goddamn scene?”

“I had you on speaker phone,” I explained. “Look, I appreciate you fixing my car, Riggs was nice enough to deliver it to me as soon as it was done so I didn’t have to wait. It all worked out so why are you going crazy?”

“What are you doing with Riggs?”

“Having breakfast,” I said.

“Are you sleeping with him?” Talk about cutting to the chase. My brother didn’t beat around the bush that’s for sure.

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