“Didn’t say I was,” he replies. “Just said you noticed.”
I hate that he’s right.
He takes a sip, eyes never leaving my face. “Perfect. See, when you’re not trying to stab me with a bar towel, you’re excellent at your job.”
I lean in slightly. “You might want to remember where you are.”
“Oh, I do,” he says, voice dropping just enough. “I’m at a bar being served by a woman who clearly wants to throw me out and kiss me at the same time.”
I choke. Just barely.
“That is not what’s happening,” I snap.
“Isn’t. it,” he says calmly, reaching into his jacket and sliding a card toward me. “Then why are you breathing differently?”
I push the card back without looking. “Act like you have customer service skills and not like you’re trying to get stabbed.”
He chuckles. “Act like I’m robbing you and taking your day’s pay when I’ve done nothing to you.”
I tilt my head. “Isn’t it a little embarrassing, scrounging around trying to get women more than a decade younger than you to fall in love with you?”
He doesn’t miss a beat.
“First,” he says, amused, “I’m not scrounging. Second, this is absolutely about Lena.”
My jaw tightens.
“And third,” he continues, leaning in just enough to make my pulse jump, “I’m not trying to get her to fall in love with me. She already is.”
The words hit clean. Surgical.
“And if you stopped being so fucking stubborn,” he adds softly, “you could fall in love with me too. We could make this very simple.”
My mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
Heat floods my face, my chest, places I have no business thinking about behind a bar. He watches it happen, eyes dark with satisfaction.
Then he smirks.
God, I hate that smirk.
I shove his card back toward him. “You’re arrogant.”
“Confident,” he corrects. “There’s a difference.”
He finishes his drink, sets the glass down, and leaves a bill on the bar.
I glance at it.
“One hundred dollars?” I push it back. “You made a mistake.”
“I didn’t,” he says, standing.
“That’s too much.”
He leans in one last time, voice low, intimate, meant only for me. “I take care of what’s mine.”
