Page 8 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
For a moment, my mind wipes blank. If someone asked me my name, I wouldn’t know it.
Then a light bulb goes on over my head, and I realize what’s happening.
“Oh, I get it.” My laugh is so acidic it could corrode steel. “You’re hilarious, pal. Very funny.” I peer at his silk pocket square. “Where’s the camera hidden? In there? Or is it one of the buttons on your jacket?”
I lean into his chest and say deliberately to the top button on his suit, “Go fuck yourself.”
He doesn’t even have the good manners to look embarrassed that I’ve caught him. He simply watches me with a look of amusement in those blistering aquamarine eyes, like he’s waiting to see what strange and adorable thing I’ll do next.
I wave my hand dismissively. “Off with you. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Which shit is that? Being desired by a man?”
I glare at him. Now I’m getting really mad. “Look. You’ve had your fun. You’ve got your pictures, or your video, now you can go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and post all that crap online so everyone can laugh at me some more. And just for the record, I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to find out my itinerary and stalk me all the way to New York. I swear to God, if any of your buddies are waiting for me when I get off my next flight, I’ll cut a bitch.”
He cocks his head, studying me.
“Oh, you’re going with the silent treatment? The last guy who did that to me ended up with a broken nose. You’ve been warned.”
I chug my espresso, glaring over the rim of the tiny porcelain cup at the bartender, who never left and has been standing there the entire time, listening. She looks so scandalized that I’ve rebuffed Euro Hunk, I feel an explanation is in order. “He’s a paparazzi,” I tell her, jerking my chin at him.
He says calmly, “The word paparazzi is plural.”
I breathe in and out slowly, gripping the cup so hard it might shatter. “So is the word fists.”
Sliding onto the stool next to mine, he addresses the gaping bartender. “I’ll take another Glenlivet, please. The lady will have another champagne.”
The look on her face is priceless. Seriously, if I were Euro Hunk, I’d be taking pictures of her, not me.
She turns and walks away, leaving me alone with my choking anger and an Italian hell-bent on humiliating me.
“Wait.” I look him over. “You’re probably not even really Italian, are you?”
He smiles, showing off a set of perfect white teeth. Then he says something in Italian.
“That’s not proof of anything. If I started speaking Mandarin right now, it wouldn’t make me Chinese.”
He lifts his dark brows. “You speak Mandarin?”
“That’s not my point.”
“So you’d like some other kind of proof?”
I narrow my eyes at the suggestive tone in his voice. “Short of a DNA test, there’s nothing that can prove you’re Italian.”
“Of course there is.”
Grinding my jaw, I say, “Okay. I’ll play your silly little game. What would prove you’re Italian?”
His voice drops an octave, and his blue eyes burn. “Have you ever made love with an Italian man?”
I roll my eyes and exhale. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
He gifts me with that insanely sexy chuckle again. “Exactly.”
The bartender returns, sets our drinks down, then stands there looking at us eagerly. I’m surprised she doesn’t pull up a chair. When I scowl at her, she moves two feet down the bar and pretends to polish the counter.
“So,” says Euro Hunk, picking up his glass. “You’re being followed by the paparazzi.”
