Page 1 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
Chapter One
Frigid bitch. I didn’t know what hurt worse, those words or the cactus cosplaying as the tag in my dress. Many dates had hurled them at me. I should be numb to it by now.
I should just give up.
“Another.” I held up my empty glass and waved it toward the bartender as I groped at the back of my dress with my other hand, trying to move the tag digging into me.
The cherry martini tasted like Sunday afternoons with my mom spent watching sappy romance movies while eating ice cream. It felt like home and safety.
I needed that comfort now. Frankie, my roommate and self-appointed driver, was an hour away, I still hadn’t eaten, and that goddamn tag threatened to put me in a straitjacket. The bartender poured another drink. He didn’t talk this time.
Great.
I even drove the bartender away.
Don’t cry.
Tears leaked down my face anyway, ruining the make-up I spent an hour trying to get just right. I even watched several how-to videos trying to be better, prettier, maybe—I drank half the drink in front of me in one gulp to stop the tears.
“Lily?” a familiar masculine voice asked from the vicinity of the hostess stand.
“Duke!” I tried to stand and walk over to him, except I forgot about my heels. One hooked onto the foot rail and I toppled into the seat next to me.
“Whoa there,” Duke said from right next to me as he reached to help me sit up. He moved so fast. He must have flown over here from the hostess stand. Is that a billionaire superpower? Can they fly? I looked down at his shoes to make sure they hadn’t turned into rockets.
“No, Lily, my shoes aren’t rockets.” He laughed low and soft, the sound sliding along my skin and sinking into every part of me.
“Can you read minds?” I asked, in awe of his abilities.
“No, you asked that out loud. How much have you had to drink?” His hand gripped my waist, helping me stand, and warm tingles raced up and down my spine.
“Only three. Well, most of three. Some of three.” When did counting become so hard? “Definitely all of one and two. It tastes like ice cream sundaes with my mom. Do you remember those? They are so yummy. I want more.”
I turned around to finish my drink but went too fast and fell back against Duke’s chest. He reached around me and pushed the delightful red drink away from us while wrapping his arm around me and pulling me away from the bar.
“No more drinks for you, lightweight. Besides, I thoughtyou didn’t even like alcohol.” We headed to the door, and I leaned against Duke’s side while he helped me walk. I’m not sure how he walked on the floor while it moved so much. Maybe the Marines taught him that particular skill.
“I like that alcohol, and besides, I wanted to look cool and collected after my date left in the middle of the meal. I told him I didn’t want to eat the salad he ordered for me, and then he yelled at me and said all women loved salads. The jerk. The wait staff even said so. They said, ‘some men are complete assholes.’ Not you, though. You’re only half an asshole some of the time. And never at all to me.” I poked his nose and then tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. Good thing Duke still had his arm around me.
“You’re the only one in the world that thinks that.” The valet did a double take when we walked up but took Duke’s ticket and ran off to get his car. I wondered which one he drove tonight.
“Oh shoot. I have to call Frankie and tell her that she can go watch the stars for aliens.” I fumbled around in my purse until I found my phone, but it slipped through my fingers like water. “Oops.”
“Here, lean against this pole. I’ll get your phone.” Duke laughed at me.
Instead of handing my phone back to me, he held it up to my face to unlock the phone and then called Frankie himself. I heard her laughing over the phone.
Duke slipped my phone into my purse when he finished and then helped me off the pole and into his orange Bronco, an almost exact replica of the one he inherited from his mom—and then drove into a wall when we were teenagers.
“It’s the pumpkin!” I exclaimed.
I named it this. The orange color made it easy. As his bestfriend, it was my duty to make sure he knew how ridiculous it looked.
“Where is my fairy godmother? Oh right, that’s you.” I bopped him on the nose again.
I used to worry that my teasing would be too much, and we wouldn’t be friends anymore. It was what always happened. I never knew the right things to say or do.
Not with Duke. Whenever I brought it up, he pulled me into a sideways hug, rubbed my hair, and said, ‘that’s never going to happen, Lil. You’re the only one that can tolerate me for more than twenty minutes.’
