Page 36 of Selling Innocence

And this side of her made me grin wider. Why was it that I liked it? Sure, she’d been cute in her dress and heels, fitting in perfectly with the atmosphere and environment of that restaurant, but I preferred her this way.

She still wore the dress, but she’d removed the shoes. That alone had dressed her down, made her look more casual even in the figure-hugging black dress.

“You asshole!” she snapped.

The curse word from her lovely pink lips took me by surprise, and it took everything I had not to break into a laugh at her.

Even I knew better than to piss a woman off too much.

Men would punch someone for it, but a woman? They tended to wait until the right moment, then take a man’s balls for going too far.

I liked my balls in one piece and to stay exactly where they were.

“You should probably sleep off all that alcohol,” I said. “I’d hate for you to say something you didn’t mean.”

“Oh, trust me, I mean everything I’m about to say.” She pointed her finger at me, the action drawing attention to the silver rings on her fingers. She wore a bunch of them, and they caught the light as she moved.

“Kenz,” Hayden said, his voice soft and coaxing.

“Stay out of this,” Kenz snapped without looking his way. “This is between the playboy and me.”

Hayden closed his mouth, and wasn’t that amazing? Normally he meddled so much that nothing could get him to shut up. Leave it to this little fireball to sideline him so well.

Which meant she was all mine for the moment. Even if it was due to anger, I couldn’t stop my glee at being her whole world right now.

“So go on. What’s so important that you stormed all the way down here to confront me?” I crossed my arms and waited, giving her the floor.

“How dare you use me like that!”

“Like what?”

“You lied to me. You took me there to show me off, to plant a story in the tabloids, and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me about it first.”

“I didn’t say anything because if I had, you wouldn’t have relaxed and looked like you were enjoying yourself. We needed the pictures to look natural, like we were on a date, and I’ve seen you lie. You suck at it. No one would have believed it if you’d known ahead of time.”

She pressed her lips together, and beneath the anger? Hurt?

It made no sense to me at all. She tore her gaze from mine, staring instead at the far wall as she blinked quickly then looked up at the ceiling.

Is she going to cry?

Sure, women crying wasn’t anything new to me. Women liked to use tears like a weapon, like another way to manipulate those around them. They rarely swayed me because I knew the trick so well.

Yet, watching Kenz try so hard not to cry caused a strange tightening in my chest.

“Why are you so mad? It was a kiss, Kenz. I never lied to you. It was a date, and I had a good time. The fact that I did it knowing cameras would be there didn’t make anything I said a lie.”

“You really are heartless, aren’t you?” She turned to leave.

But something inside me refused to let her go, especially when I still didn’t understand what had triggered her so much. It was one kiss, and honestly? It was a really damn good kiss. I saw no good reason to be this angry over it.

I grabbed her wrist with my left hand, needing to make sense of this. “What are you so mad about? Are you pissed it ended at a kiss? Because I wasn’t lying. You are beautiful, and I do find you interesting. You want me to prove it? Come to my bedroom, and I’ll spend all damned night showing you.”

A stinging in my cheek made me release her and step backward.

She’d slapped me? I touched the spot, my eyes wide, the reaction totally unexpected.

Worse? The tears that had finally escaped her eyes, the ones she hadn’t managed to keep from falling. “That was my first kiss, you asshole. I won’t ever forgive you for stealing it.”

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