Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (164 page)

Main
Street
was crowded this time of day, and so Kallie was forced to park quite a few
blocks away from the ice cream parlor.
She
didn’t mind.
 
It was gorgeous and
the street was so cute, everyone was out in their shorts and sunglasses,
parents pushing strollers, people walking dogs, biking, and everyone seemed to
be smiling.

Kallie
wondered if Hunter Reardon would be
smiling if he were with her right now.
 
And then she told herself (not for the first time either) to knock it
off.
 
He didn’t really like
her.
 
What did she know about him?

Well,
she
knew he was quick to throw a punch.
 
At the time, it had seemed like a good thing, chivalrous even.
 
Now, looking back, she figured he was
probably just a violent hothead who needed little excuse to punch someone’s
lights out.

Kallie
smiled
at a passing couple with a tiny baby in a stroller.
 
They smiled back at her.
 
They looked happy, complete.
 
A piece of her heart cried out, why
can’t I have what they have?
 
The
same thing she thought endlessly while watching Nicole and Red stare lovingly
into each other’s eyes day after day.

If
there
was a downside to working for such an awesome couple, it might be the fact that
it highlighted just how lacking she was in that department.

Hunter
Reardon
wasn’t going to fill that void, she realized.
 
He was a pipe dream, smoke and
mirrors.
 
When he’d seemed so caring
in the bathroom, touching her so gently,
staring
into her eyes—it was just him playing her.
 
He was some sort of Hollywood mover and
shaker on top of being a successful writer, and it was likely that he’d learned
how to tell women exactly what they wanted to hear.

Exactly
what
he needed them to believe if he was going to find a way into their pants on a
first date.

I
feel like I’ve known
you my entire life.

Kallie
had replayed the moment he’d said that
over and over again in her head— until the memory had worn so thin as to
be completely robbed of any emotional charge. Now, when she thought back on it,
she realized that this had been just another lame line he’d likely used on
dozens of unassuming women.

And
to
think, if Red hadn’t intruded on the moment, that there was no telling how far
she’d have gone with Hunter.
 
She’d
wanted him
that
badly.

There
were a few people sitting and standing
just outside the entrance of Scoop

Du
Jour, eating waffle cones and sundaes and
looking generally happy to be alive.

Kallie
was
figuring to be one of the happy eaters momentarily.
 
She walked inside and looked up at the
menu board, trying to figure out whether she wanted a waffle cone or
a sundae.
 
The line was long enough, but moving
quickly.

As
she
considered her order, Kallie was suddenly struck by an intense feeling of being
watched.
 
And out of the corner of
her eye, she saw him.
 
Everything
happened so quickly that she didn’t even realize that she’d already recognized
him before he’d even spoken.

“Kallie?”
he said, walking toward her, waffle cone
in hand.

Her
legs
were rooted to the floor and her heart was pounding.
 
Hunter Reardon was there—in the
ice cream parlor, talking to her.

She
was mortified.
 
It was like her dream—her
nightmare—everything had come together like magic and manifested this
demon in the flesh.
 
“Hi Hunter,”
she said softly, barely turning to look at him.

She
could
sense him though. His presence was so strong, so intoxicating, that she could
barely keep from staring at him.
 
He
was wearing white shorts and a gray t-shirt, very casual.
 
Everything seemed to fit him in a way
that it looked thrown on, yet planned—as if a stylist might have worked
hours and hours to create the perfect “thrown together” look for a photo shoot.

“What
are you doing here?”

She
pointed
to the board.
 
“Pretty self
explanatory, I think.”

He laughed.
 
“Yeah, dumb question.”

The
line
moved forward and he moved with her.
 
She sighed and looked away, hoping he’d just go.
 
It was too painful seeing him here,
knowing that for him this was just another chance encounter, another
opportunity to use his magnetism to make her want him, while he stayed
pleasantly aloof.

“The
waffle cones here are amazing,” he told
her.

“So
I’ve
heard.”
 
Now she definitely wasn’t
getting one, even though it looked and even smelled awesome.

After
his suggestion, Kallie was determined to
order a sundae.

The
line
move again and someone took her order.
 
She got a sundae with nuts and whipped cream, and Hunter was standing
nearby, clearly waiting for her.

She
hated
him for being here and acting like they were old college friends running into
one another.

She
hated
herself for hoping against hope that maybe he had a good reason for not calling
her—maybe he really had forgotten her number.

A
moment
later, she’d gotten her sundae and paid, and then she was scurrying out the
door and Hunter was following after.
 
“Wait up,” he said.
 
“You in
a hurry or something?”

Kallie
kept walking.
 
She was suddenly aware of her own
outfit—tight jean shorts and a striped summer top that showed off a good
deal of skin—and Hunter’s eyes on her. “I’m not in a hurry,” she told
him.
 
“But I don’t feel like wasting
my time, either.”

“Wasting
your
time on what?”

“Anything.”

“Is
this because I didn’t call you?” he asked.

She
slowed
down a little, thinking of his word choice.
 
Something about the way he’d phrased the
question told her that he hadn’t simply forgotten her number.
 
She knew that his not calling her was
intentional.

“Look,
I really don’t care, Hunter.”

“Kallie,
hold
on a second.
 
Will you just slow
down a minute?
 
My ice cream’s
melting all down my hand.”

She
stopped
and watched as he began using one tiny napkin to wipe the ice cream that had
run down his hand from the waffle cone.

Then
she
noticed her own sundae was melting.
 
So now he’d even managed to ruin her sundae.
 
“I don’t have anything to say to you,”
she told him.
 
“I’m not interested
in playing this game—it’s boring.
 
You’re boring.”

Hunter
looked
up at her, and she could see genuine hurt in his eyes.
 
“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you.
 
Things got kind of complicated for me,
and—“

“Hunter,
I
know this might surprise you, but I’m really not that interested in having this
conversation.”
 
She felt a deep pang
inside her chest.
 
What a bitch I’m
being right now, she thought.
 
She
was never like that to people.
 
Never.

That
was
followed by a reminder of how he’d behaved, how sleazy he’d been that night,
given his subsequent lack of follow through.

“Okay.
I got it,” he said.
 
“Well, it really was great
seeing—“

She
literally
started walking away from him in the middle of his sentence, and he watched her
go with his mouth open.

Kallie
went
the last block back to her car feeling stunned by her own actions.
 
Her ice cream was pretty much melted,
and her appetite gone.
 
She tossed
it into the garbage can nearby and then got in her car.

She
couldn’t
remember the last time she’d felt so defeated.
 
Maybe right after Brad
had assaulted her in the laundry
room—but this was almost worse.
 
Brad was just an idiot, so running away from him had sort of been a relief.

Running
away
from Hunter hurt.
 
Saying those
things to him hurt.

Why
couldn’t
she admit that she’d wanted him to follow her, to tell her sorry again, to say
something that would allow her to forgive him?

Kallie
didn’t
know why she’d been so nasty, but she did know that she needed to get the heck
out of there.
 
She wanted to get
away from this street and never look back. But when she tried to put her car
into gear, the shifter wouldn’t budge.
 
She turned the car off and then restarted it.

The
shifter still wouldn’t move into drive.

“Shit.”
She
was getting more and more upset now.
 
Was she going to be stuck on top of everything else?
 
Had she broken the Jameson’s car, too?

Kallie
turned
the car off and waited a couple of minutes, then started it and tried yet
again.
 
Nothing.
 
The damn thing was stuck fast.

“Is
something wrong?”

She
looked
up to see Hunter peering in the passenger window from the curb. Kallie’s heart
leapt and she nearly smiled.
 
Do not
smile, she told herself.

Remember,
you’re
not relieved at all.
 
You’re not
jumping for joy that he came back for you, even though you were a Class A bitch
to him.

“My
car’s broken,” she said.

He
grinned.
 
“Broken?
 
It sounds like the engine’s running
fine.”

“I
can’t
get it into drive.”
 
She tried and
he watched her, a little smile playing on his lips.

“It
sure
would be funny if the guy you just insulted could fix your car and save you
lots of time and money.”

Kallie
pursed
her lips.
 
“That would be
funny.
 
But I don’t think it could
ever happen.”

“No?”
He raised his eyebrows at her.

God,
he
was so sexy and he knew it.
 
He
totally must have practiced that look in the mirror.

“No.”
She
shook her head.
 
How could he be so
charming when she was totally onto him?
 
How was a thing like that even possible?

“Let
me give it a try,” he said.

She
looked at him uncertainly.
 
“Please don’t mess with me.
 
This isn’t even my
 
car.”

He
chuckled.
 
“I’m not going to mess with you,
Kallie.
 
You’re so suspicious.”

I
wonder
why
, she thought, but kept
quiet.
 
She got out of the car and
he walked around and passed by her, his arm briefly brushing against hers,
giving her an electric jolt at the minor contact.

Hunter
got
inside and turned the car off.
 
He
looked around and ran his hands along the steering column—seemed to find
something he was looking for—and then gently turned the key, but not all
the way on.
 
Next, she saw him push
down on the break, his leg flexing with the pressure.

Kallie
realized
that a guy who knew his way around a car was even sexier than a guy who knew
how to give a smoldering look.
 
Unfortunately for her, Hunter was both.

Finally,
he
turned the ignition all the way and the engine roared to life.
 
He grabbed hold of the gearshift and
tried to put it in drive.

It
didn’t work for him, either.

“It’s
okay, you tried,” she told him.

He
looked
up at her with an appreciative grin.
 
“So, I think I can fix this in under two minutes.”

“Doesn’t
look
like it.” “Want to bet?”

She
thought about it.
 
“What kind of bet?”

“If
I
win, you come with me and hang out for the rest of the day.
 
And you have to be nice to me for fixing
your car for free.”