Page 63 of Captivated By You

I blinked. “Sorry, what?”

He winced. “I didn’t want to give you the chance to refuse to come.”

“So you lied.”

He shook his head. “Not lied. I just didn’t tell you where we were going.”

He gave me one of his special impish grins accompanied by a shrug.

“You’re not mad, are you?”

My initial reaction was to tell him that, yes, I was mad as hell. But my feelings weren’t ones of anger. More like terror.

Meet the Kingcaids? The entire clan?

His parents and everything?

“Do they know you’re bringing me?”

He nodded. “They’re excited to meet you.”

I nibbled my lip. “What if they think I’m not good enough for you? Too… poor. What if they assume I’m after your money? All those things that rich people think about those less well-off than themselves.”

“My parents aren’t like that. Don’t let Johannes sway you to think my entire family are dicks. My dad came from nothing and worked his way up to where he is now. He’s earned every dime by making sacrifices. Same with his brothers. Come and see for yourself, but if you’re worried that they’ll think you’re less-than just because you don’t have millions in the bank, I can assure you that you’re wrong.”

I grimaced. “See, now I feel bad, and reverse judgmental.”

“Reverse judgmental?”

“Yeah, because I immediately jumped to the conclusion that they’d think I wasn’t worthy because I’m poor. Yet I assumed they’d think that because they are rich. And…”

I broke off.

“Go on,” Ash urged as the car filtered into the busy Friday night traffic.

“Well, I don’t want them to think I’m with you because you’re the boss. That I somehow think you’ll help my career. Or something like that.” I waved about wildly. “Forget it. I’m rambling.”

He tapped his chin. “Easy fix. We just tell them that you fucked me long before you knew who I was.”

My mouth popped open. “Ash!”

“And then refused to have anything to do with me once you did.”

“You better hadn’t.”

“I’ll then go on to tell them that I’ve had to pull on every seduction technique in the book to persuade you to let me fuck you again.” He waggled his eyebrows. “But now that you have, you can’t get enough, and I have to fight you off with a stick.”

“Don’t you dare!”

He chuckled. “Depends how drunk I get.”

“Alcohol-free wine for you, then.”

He pulled a face. “Ugh, no, thank you. Have you tasted that stuff? Disgusting.”

“Snob.”

“I prefer wine connoisseur.”

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