Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
I clenched my fists so I wouldn’t smack the smug smile off his handsome face.
My threat was nowhere near empty. It was a hobby of mine to punish men who thought they could control women.
Elliot didn’t look appropriately unnerved. Men rarely did. Not until their life was falling apart around them because of the woman they weren’t properly afraid of.
“I’d never force a woman to do something they didn’t want to do.” He spoke softly but not without conviction. “But you want to have dinner with me. Just a little.” He held his thumb and forefinger apart.
“What makes you think that?” I balked instead of lying outright, which was the appropriate course of action. Lie my well-toned ass off then get out of there.
“A hunch.” Elliot’s eyes twinkled again.
It was a dare. For me to argue with him some more, prod and poke to find out what he thought about me. What I thought about him.
I was good at that.
Fighting.
I was fucking great at that. And I’d never backed down from a fight. Not once. Which had bit me in the ass a time or too but mostly hardened me into the woman I’d become.
And I was proud of the woman I’d become.
Mostly.
I’d buried a lot of the shame and guilt for my darker deeds, lying to myself about the motivations and the villains in such things.
When I was the villain. If you wanted to get down to it.
Certainly not suitable for a clear-eyed fisherman who likely hadn’t so much as jaywalked.
“You have no idea what you’d get yourself into with me.” Was I warning him? Flirting?
His brow quirked, and his eyes danced down my body in a gaze that felt physical, as if he was imagining what he was going to do to it. Or maybe that was just me.
As oxytocin shot through my bloodstream, I steeled my expression to remain even.
“That’s kind of the point. I like the mystery.” He met my eyes again, his voice edged with a hungry rasp. “What’s the problem, Calliope Derrick? Scared you won’t last through a dinner with me without starting to like me a little?”
There it was again.
Another challenge.
A much more dangerous one.
If I kept pushing, kept fighting, I knew I’d grind Elliot down to ensure he never so much as glanced in my direction again. I had plenty of experience with taking men apart and turning them into nothing but quivering little boys at my feet.
Yet I had no desire to do that to him. He didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t actually pressuring me into the date; he was well aware that I was a strong enough woman who wouldn’t hesitate to refuse. Moreover, I had the sense that he never would’ve broached such a bargain if he hadn’t read my subtle signs, showing I might be agreeable, interested in him.
My mind turned, calculating various outcomes before coming to the conclusion that the most logical way forward was to stay firm. Stay cold and take him down so he’d never ask me for a thing again. So I’d never see him again and never be confronted with a complicated desire toward something I shouldn’t want.
“Fine,” I relented. “But don’t be surprised when you find yourself out of your depth and regretting this moment.”
The warning wasn’t meant as a threat. The sharp tone was crafted to deftly cover the insecurity I felt, knowing if and when this man truly knew me, he’d be disgusted.
His grin endured. “I find it hard to believe that I’ll ever regret a moment with you, Calliope Derrick.”
My body reacted viscerally, physically, as his words struck me off-balance. I didn’t teeter on my heels because I was used to men trying to push me down from their height. But that wasn’t what Elliot was doing. Not in the slightest.
He was enchanted. Maybe bored by the small-town fisherman life. I was something shiny and new and attractive, and he was building me into something I wasn’t.
“You’re a romantic,” I observed as if I was calling him a fascist.
“Hopeless,” he shrugged without shame.
I gripped my purse, beyond ready to get some space between us. “I’ll remedy that at dinner, one that will be free of romance.”
His mouth twitched. “We’ll see.”
None of my usual arsenal was making an impact. He wasn’t angered by my coldness, my hardness, the blatant blows that were usually fatal to a fragile male ego.
I rolled my lips together, staring at the envelope on the bar, the real reason I was there.
All of my desire, frustration and complicated thoughts cleared as I returned to look at Elliot.
“Your niece…” I wanted to soften my voice but was unable to do that, so it still sounded harsh, businesslike. “What kind of cancer does she have?”
Like a kick to my stomach, his smile disappeared, and grief so raw, so all-encompassing, took over his expression.