Chapter Twelve
BEA
‘That looks... ’
Seated across from me on the other side of the tiny Formica table, I’d thought Kit might draw some funny looks in the shabby café, but not so, it seems. Either the man behind the counter is used to dashing men in dinner suits sipping coffee while camped on his rickety wooden chairs, or he really doesn’t care.
Don’t ask, don’t tell what goes on behind closed doors. Especially those right across the street.
‘You’re not really going to eat that, are you?’
‘What?’ I realise he’s still talking about my breakfast. The congealed eggs and improbably coloured baked beans. Beans the colour of mandarins.
‘No. Probably not.’ I line up my silverware, refusing to look at his pristine self. Do men like him always come off best? He isn’t even wet. Meanwhile, my jacket is causing puddles from where it hangs on the back of my chair. ‘It’s probably cold.’
‘It’s probably a heart attack on the plate. And you a doctor.’ Hetsks, a disparaging click of tongue and teeth.
‘Haters hate. Though you do look more like a chia seed, granola, and kale smoothie sort of man yourself.’ The soft sound of his rumbling laughter draws my head up to his smouldering gaze.
‘It’s a pity breakfast isn’t what we came here to discuss.’
‘I wasn’t aware there was to be a discussion,’ I demur, looking away again.
‘Then why else are we here?’
‘Well,I’mhere because I was frogmarched here from across the street.’
‘And you don’t care for the company?’ he almost taunts.
‘I don’t care to be manhandled,’ I retort, sitting straighter in my chair.
‘Maybe you just haven’t been handled by the right man.’
‘Oh, for the love of God, wipe the smile from your face. So you’re a good lay. Well done, you!’
‘Thank you. Not that you’d know. How’s that boyfriend of yours?’ His taunting smile boils the blood in my veins, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of my ire.
‘Still dumped,’ I respond coolly. Do I imagine his smug satisfaction? Why would he care?
‘You know, for someone who might well now be sitting in the local police station’s custody suite, you don’t appear very grateful.’
‘Oh, I am. Eternally,’ I deadpan.
‘I’m sure they’d have been very interested in the contents of that bag.’ His gaze flicks to my large tote, the same one I’d been forced to take to dinner—the one I’d abandoned when I’d stormed across the street to accost him. ‘You’re sure you’re not smuggling small children out of the hospital in there?’
‘Are you just nosy or do you have a purse fetish?’
‘Come on,’ he says, ignoring my ridiculous question. ‘Exactly who were you planning to punch this morning?’ He leans back in his chair, folding his arms across his broad chest and cocking one taunting brow. ‘And more to the point, why.’
‘I wasn’t planning to punch anyone.’ I was probably going to slap his face. A surgeon’s hands are her tools, and busted knuckles are less than ideal.
‘I don’t think that’d wash in a court of law.’
I sigh as if bored, though more realistically what I am feeling is annoyed. Annoyed at myself and at his smug bloody face.
‘Look, I’ve had a trying week.’
‘I could’ve helped with that.’
