Page 35 of Bearly Hanging On

“A beer if you’ve got it.” He sucked in a breath, ready to ask me which kind. “Whatever you’ve got that’s cold.”

“Very good, sir.”

He left, and that allowed me an opportunity to eavesdrop.

“Your mum didn’t mention that you were…” Dickhead waved his hand vaguely in her direction.

“A brunette?” Harper asked drily as she consulted the menu. “A C cup?” Pretty sure she was a D, but the jury was out until I had a chance to confirm that after a hand’s on inspection. “A Capricorn?”

“What?” Men are idiots, something I’d been forced to accept, but this guy…? He had one of the most beautiful women in the place sitting opposite him, but he was too busy getting in his feels about the height difference. He could be a short king or a short whiny little bitch, and it looked like he chose the latter. “No, tall. What’d you wear high heels for?”

“Because you told me to wear something sexy.” She leaned forward, and I barely suppressed a growl as he gazed at the cleavage propped up on the table, ready to be devoured. “Stilettos are sexy.”

“Right…” His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head, quickly followed by a sloppy smile. “So, your mum tells me you own a cafe?”

Own? Harper might’ve owned the place we visited yesterday, but I didn’t think so. By the sound of her sigh, I was right.

“I don’t…” She was going to tell him the truth, open up and be vulnerable, but the way her walls locked down tightly around her was familiar. “Sure, I own a cafe.”

“Not as nice as this place though, right?” He looked around himself, as pleased as if he owned the joint. “And look at this menu. Prime rib, steak, lobster…”

Harper did the same thing I did, looking him up and down, though she looked a little embarrassed at the fact she was scoping him out. I wasn’t. Unless the guy had some seriously lucrative investments, he couldn’t afford that kind of shit.

We were about to find out exactly what he was investing in.

“So have you heard of crypto investment?” he said.

“As in the whole digital currency thing people use on the dark web?” she said, pulling out her phone and unlocking it.

“Dark web?” He sprayed his words rather than said them. “This is the start of a new era of investment, away from the prying eyes of an authoritarian government.”

Where the fucking hell had she found this guy? He was a cooker as well? That was a term we used for people that seemed intent on living outside the confines of government, all the while using government infrastructure like roads and hospitals. There had been some spectacularly stupid videos recorded of people trying to pull sovereign citizen shit on the internet.

“People can actually make full use of their own money, reaping all the benefits in an unregulated…”

“Your drink, sir.” A beer was placed before me in a fancy glass. I nodded to the waiter, forced to smile politely, when he grabbed his order book. “Are you ready to order?”

I glanced at the menu, looking at the biggest steak they had and then ordered that.

“Along with whatever the lady is having,” I said, shooting him a meaningful look. He glanced at Harper, then nodded, taking off to deliver my order to the kitchen.

And that’s when she turned around.

Dickhead was still blathering something about crypto, no doubt not really requiring input or, y’know, common sense in the conversation. He was marinating in some vision of himself where he was a crypto-billionaire or something. Then Harper turned around. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of me and my eyebrow rose slightly. I raised my glass in salute and then took a sip.

Chapter 15

Harper

I was gonna kill my mother when I saw her next.

I don’t give a shit about a guy’s height, but insecurity is unattractive on anyone. Shaun, Brian, whatever his bloody name was, nearly died when he stood beside me. I’d walked out of my apartment, feeling myself, only to be summoned like a dog by the toot of his horn. The daggy shirt and the dubious sunglasses I could’ve looked past, but guys who monologued? If the only role you played on a date was to be a passive witness, that didn’t bode well for no pants dancing. I could just imagine this guy stroking his own dick, then blowing jizz all over my face as he called out his crypto user name.

Of course, that’s when I realised I wasn’t the only one being subjected to this rant. I felt someone’s eyes burning into my neck and then turned around, some sixth sense kicking in. There he was, Mack, the smug bastard, smirking at the whole thing. Of course, that faded when his eyes slid down, something heated replacing it as he took in my dress.

Why the hell couldn’t Shaun have looked at me like that?

Like I was edible and he wanted to take his time eating me all up? Like all the confusing feelings I had about the Big Bad Wolf as a kid (he was big, scary, and really intent on getting Granny, and for some reason that imprinted on me) had become flesh. Those eyes rolled upwards, holding mine as his eyebrow cocked up.

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