She stands taller, touching the piece that my fingers brushed. “No. I hide them for work meetings to look more professional.”
My lips flatten. “Your boss has purple hair.”
“It’s a personal choice of mine. I want to be taken seriously so clients don’t think I’m incapable of handling my job.”
It’s a jab at my commentary during our first meeting that clearly still gets under her skin. “Why pink?”
“Because I like it.”
She doesn’t seem like a pink kind of girl. She’d been warm and bubbly with Bev, Vinnie, and the others at Our Open Table last week, but there’s something hiding underneath the surface. Pain. “Is pink your favorite color?”
The question leaves her skeptical. “Why do you care?”
I lift a shoulder. “I don’t. I’m simply curious. Is there anything wrong with asking questions?Youbarged in onme, after all.”
She grumbles under her breath, and I swear I hear her cussing out Emaly’s name. I do my best to hide my amusement by schooling my features and stretching my legs out.
“Mine is black,” I tell her. “If you accept black as a color. I know it’s technically not, but I find myself liking it anyway. It makes sense, I suppose. I prefer my coffee black, my whiskey straight, and my chocolate dark.”
Winter stares at me. “So you’re a bitter person. Shocker.”
My smile returns. “You could say that.Youdon’t strike me as bitter, though. Even if you pretend like you are.”
Her lips part. “I do not!”
“You’re certainly not sweet. Not to me.”
“You haven’t earned that right,” she counters.
Touché. “What do I need to do then?”
Her lips open to reply, then close when she comes up with nothing. Her tongue drags along the seam of her lips to wet them, and I can tell she’s thinking.
I stand and slowly approach her. Her frame is tiny compared to mine, but she’s slightly taller than Emaly, so the height difference doesn’t feel as dooming. “Do you want me to beg foryour forgiveness? Would you like me to get on my knees right here, right now?”
My low spoken words are slow and steady, and a small breath releases from her when my shoes nudge the tips of hers. Her eyes peer up at me through thick lashes and are glazed with something I’m all too familiar with.
Lust.
“Do you want me to get on my knees, Winter?” I repeat the question, watching her crane her neck to look up at me with flushed cheeks.
Her throat bobs with a swallow that tells me I’m not the only one who’s interested.
Good to fucking know.
“You don’t—I—” Her sputtered words get stuck, and that red in her cheeks returns. Forget black. I think I like that color more.
I lift my fingers to her chin, pinching it between them to hold her gaze. “I would have chosen you to be here over Ashton or that condescending asshat who runs this place. It wasn’t me who suggested you stay out.”
Her eyes don’t move away from mine. “I thought…” Her throat bobs again.
She thought I’d done it intentionally.
To hurt her.
To get back at her, somehow.
Slowly, so slowly, I sink to my knees. “Is this what you need, Winter?” I’m at eye level to the waistband of her jeans, but I look up at her so I don’t get any ideas. Like unbuttoning her jeans and pulling down her zipper. She’s staring down at me now, her bottom lip between her front teeth. “I wanted you here. I even told my agent I wouldn’t do it if you weren’t involved.”
