Page 60 of Irresistibly Risky

She glances around, noting the people watching us. “So, no sex tonight?”

“No. Definitely not.” I reach for my wallet and tug out a bunch of bills, dropping them on the table. “For dinner and your Uber home. I’m sorry. This isn’t going to happen between us. It never was.”

“Really?” she snaps, growing angry. “What do you mean this isn’t going to happen between us and it never was? No one rejects me. Everyone wants to fuck me. Look at me.” She waves a hand over herself. “I’m beautiful and famous. I have over two hundred thousand followers.”

“I’m thrilled for you. Bye now.”

I spin and race for the exit, snatching Wynter’s sweater thing just as the host goes to pick it up. “I’ve got it. I know who it belongs to. Can you have them bring my car around immediately?”

“Certainly, Mr. Reyes.”

“Thank you.” I hand him my valet ticket and then run outside, but Wynter and her date are already gone. My good hand rakes through my hair as I pace in an impatient circle. A few people come up to me, asking for selfies and about my shoulder. I smile and give them the standard answer they’re looking for, and then finally my car arrives, and I hop in, racing home.

Praying she’s there.

I need to make sure she’s not with him, but I also need to explain about my date. I was foolish in not telling her, but I didn’t know what to say or how to put it. Her trust in men is already about as limited as it gets, and then I went and proved her right.

I am such a fool.

I might have potentially risked everything I’ve been trying to build with her. And for what? To pull the heat off my shoulder? Who gives a fuck? Why did I give into that? Why did I listen when, in my gut, I knew better?

Parking in my spot, I fly to the elevator and then up to my place, storming through the condo. She’s here. The light in the foyer is on, and I’m nearly positive I flipped it off before I left tonight. I jog toward her bedroom, and then I’m pounding on her door.

“Ice queen? Are you in there?”

No answer. Dammit, I know she is. The hall is dark, but there’s a light glowing from under the crack of her door.

“I’m sorry.” I pound again, only to collapse against the wood, my forehead pressing into it. “It’s not what you think. I swear it’s not.”

“I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter.”

“It does! It all matters. I need to see you. I need to talk to you.”

“Go away, Asher.”

My eyes cinch tight. “I can’t do that.”

“You’re free to date, and so am I. There’s nothing to say beyond that.”

“Like hell, there’s not,” I growl and then temper my voice. “Please. I have the sweater you dropped on your way out.”

Nothing.

“Please, talk to me.” I scramble for a way to reach her. To get my stubborn woman to comply. “This isn’t healthy for Mason. We have to be able to communicate with each other.”

My face pinches up in nervous anticipation as I wait for her to either give in or verbally eviscerate me for that one. But to my surprise, the door shifts and then opens. Only before she fully opens it, I start to lose my shit, thrusting it all the way open and getting right up in her face with my hands all over her.

“What happened?”

Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, but the bright swollen patch on her right cheek, along with the scrape slicing right through it, has me seeing red.

“It’s not how it looks,” she starts, and that alone makes me postal.

Fury shoots a blazing path through my veins. “Wynter, tell me where he is and what he did to you because he is a fucking dead man. No one touches you. No one.”

“It was an accident.”

“You see,” I start, walking her into the bedroom and then straight into her bathroom, her feet stumbling behind her as I push her along, “to me, that’s bullshit. Because in my twenty-nine years, I’ve never accidentally hurt anyone, let alone a woman.”

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