Page 60 of Crazy In Love
It was cute as hell.
And I’d never found a woman to be cute as hell, so that was saying a lot.
“I’m kidding, Emilia. At least about you being a filthy girl,” I chuckled. Again.
Chuckling normally annoyed me. The whole idea of it. I’d always found it to be fake, unless it was a sarcastic chuckle.
But here I was, enjoying a little banter with a woman I’d considered the enemy mere weeks ago.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
“Maybe you wanted me to know what you were doing.”
“Bridger,” she said, her voice serious now.
“Yes, Emilia.”
She made a loud, dramatic sigh. “What did you want to speak to me about? And if you tell me that you’re back to thinking I write ‘The Taylor Tea,’ I’m hanging up this phone.”
“If I thought you still wrote ‘The Taylor Tea,’ I wouldn’t have had your car towed from my driveway. It would be somewhere out in the river.”
“How very mature of you,” she said, but I heard the humor in her voice.
“How’s the new business going?”
“Are we making small talk now?” she asked. “Are you really interested in how my interior design business is doing?”
“Would I be asking if I wasn’t?” I said, my tone a bit harsher now.
Small talk didn’t come naturally to me, but for whatever reason, I didn’t mind it when I was speaking to Emilia.
And I liked that she gave me shit.
Most people just cowered to me.
I’d pushed her too far, and now she’d found her voice, and I fucking liked it.
“Okayyyyyy,” she said. “If you must know, business is a bit slow. I have a whopping zero clients, unless you count Josh Black, who is basically offering to hire me to force me to date him.”
My hands fisted at her words. That fucking dude worked my every nerve.
“Don’t take him on as a client—the guy is a complete douchebag. Plus, he has a reputation of not paying for the work people do for him,” I said. “But if he ever owes you money, you just let me know. It would be an honor if you let me collect it for you.”
Laughter came from the other side of the phone, and I dropped down to sit on the couch.
“You’re going to beat up Josh Black for me, huh?”
“I’d take pleasure in it.”
“First the toilet, then the snow tires, and now you’re offering to fight Josh Black. You’re full of surprises,” she said, her voice sounding sleepy now.
Why did I like the sound of sleepy Emilia’s voice so much?
I normally dreaded talking on the phone.
“You shouldn’t have returned that fucking toilet, Emilia. It’s really spectacular.”
“I used the one at Lulu and Rafe’s house. I admit it’s nice. But I wasn’t asking for a gift, I was asking for an apology.”
