My cheeks burn. I hate how easily he can wound me with words, how casually he can reduce what looked intimate and playful to just bodies and mechanics. That’s how he thinks of me and him too.
The silence stretches between us until his gaze shifts past my shoulder to where my list still hangs on the wall, those optimistic goals mocking me with their naivety.
“Your list is still there.”
“I don’t abandon projects halfway through. Although I might have to add a new goal: get through one week without CEO conducting unauthorized micromanagement of my new budding love life.”
“One awkward date with a fisherman hardly qualifies as a new budding love life.”
Ugh. This man.
“We were having a lovely time! The only reason it got awkward was because you completely violated my kiss.”
His brows rise. “Iviolated your kiss?”
“Yes!” I march toward him, hands planted on my hips, trying for fierce authority.
Instead of looking even remotely chastised, his eyes start a slow journey up my body, tracking from my bare legs to where my hands rest on my hips, then finally up to my face.
My pulse jumps under his inspection. I have to fight not to tug my skirt down or do something that shows how much he affects me.
“I was mid-kiss with a perfectly nice man,” I say, planting myself directly in front of him so he has to tilt his head back to look at me—a rare moment where I have the height advantage. “And when I opened my eyes, there you were. Watching.”
“If you were that into him, you wouldn’t have noticed me at all.”
I bristle. “Iwasinto him.” God, this man’s arrogance is staggering. “You should have looked away like a decent human being. Ever heard of privacy? Unless—” I falter. “Unless you were jealous.”
“Jealous?” His lip curls. “Of that pathetic excuse for a kiss? No.”
The words land sharp and cruel. Humiliation burns under my skin. “Right. Obviously. Why would you be?”
“I’ve had handshakes with more heat. Nothing to get jealous over.”
Bastard.
“I can be passionate! Stop treating me like I’m a frigid little mouse who doesn’t know what she wants!”
He sets down his beer and looks up at me, those blue eyes burning. “I know exactly how passionate you can be. I haven’t bloody forgotten what happened on that boat.”
The air goes thick.
I’m standing over him, and somehow—even sitting—it feels like he’s looming over me. Like he could just drag me onto his lap and kiss the fight right out of me.
He thinks I’ve been pining for him, lying in bed replaying that kiss like a lovesick teenager, sighing his name into my pillow.
Maybe I have, but that’s between me and my mortifying subconscious, not something he gets to be smug about. Right now, all I want is to wipe that knowing look off his face.
I lift my chin. “Actually, that kiss with Malcolm? Way more passionate than our boat mistake.”
He has the audacity to chuckle. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“You are so bloody arrogant! You think you’re God’s gift to women, don’t you?”
He doesn’t rise to the bait, just takes a long, slow pull from his beer while his eyes stay locked on mine, watching me work myself into a state.
“Yeah,” he says finally, “I’m arrogant. But I’m not wrong. I was there on that boat. I know exactly how you reacted to me.” His voice deepens into something that makes my knees weak, even though I’m trying to stay angry. “What you had with that guy was a fucking peck on the cheek compared to what happened between us. I don’t need to chase women or drag them away from other men when I already know what they want.”
Arrogant bastard. And the worst part? He’s right.
