Page 16 of The Hotshot vs The Reporter

“No.”

I cock my head to the side. “No?”

“No. I’m not talking about my childhood,” he says grimly, his face stone-cold serious. I sigh heavily. Great. So I can’t start at the beginning, when he was likely innocent and maybe had the lightness of a child.

This is totally fine.

“Fine,” I say, sitting up a little straighter. “What about high school?”

I mean, I’m sure he was a douchebag then too, but no way he was as bad as he is now. “No.”

I huff, annoyed. “Seriously? What the hell are we going to talk about then? You agreed to an interview.”

“How about we talk about what an awesome racer I am?”

He says it with so much confidence, I kind of want to smack him. Okay, not kind of. I really, really do. “No,” I say simply.

A slow smirk plays on his full lips, highlighting his perfectly styled blond hair as he leans back into the plush sofa. “Why not? It is my career.”

“And that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to show more than just an arrogant, too-full-of-himself racer who doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. Now stop wasting my time.”

He sits up now, his back straight. “I’m not talking about my childhood. I’m not talking about high-school bullshit. I don’t know why you’re here either because what I am is a racer. It’s my life. It’s what matters.”

I believe him, and it makes me sad for him. “Isn’t there something you enjoy besides racing? Anything at all?”

He seems to think about it before he speaks, which let’s be honest, that’s a pretty big deal for Royal. “Worlds of Fun.”

I cock my head to the side, completely dumbfounded. “The amusement park?”

He nods with a small smile on his lips. A real smile. Not a mask. Not a smirk. A real damn smile. “Yeah. When I first moved here, Axel and I saw a commercial for it and decided to go. It was a blast. The most fun I had not in a car and with my clothes on in my entire life.”

I try not to think about him without his clothes on and have to berate myself for that fact. I do not want to see him naked. Nope. It doesn’t matter that he’s so damn beautiful on the outside, it melts my brain. He’s not my type.

And he’s a notorious playboy. The number of women he’s been seen with over the years is enough to tell me if he isn’t straight, he’s hiding it. But it looked awfully damn real.

But none of that matters to me. Straight or not, I’m absolutely not going there. Not ever.

“We should go.”

“What?” It takes me a moment to register what he said as he stands up.

“We should go to Worlds of Fun.”

“Now?” I ask, surprised.

He nods and picks Annie up off my lap, cuddling her and then setting her down on the wood floor. “Yeah. Why not? You want to see a different side of me, and I haven’t been for a couple of years.”

I stand up slowly, looking down at my dress pants and smoothing my tie. I’m dressed for a professional interview, and he wants to take me to an amusement park. This is my life.

“I’m not really dressed for it.”

He shrugs like it’s nothing. “I have something you can borrow, I’m sure.”

I can’t help but drag my eyes over his tall, broad frame. I’m not a small man, maybe a little on the thin side and average height. But Royal towers over me and has to have fifty pounds on me.

He laughs at my perusal. “I have some older stuff from before I hit my growth spurt. They might come close to fitting your scrawny ass.”

He starts toward the stairs. “My ass is not scrawny,” I gripe as I follow him.

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