Chapter 15

He held up a hand, and a waiter came running over within seconds. Saving me from another embarrassing attempt at the menu, Dominic ordered for me. Then he nodded at the waiter who bowed before leaving.

“You’re not having dessert?”

“I don’t like sweets,” he said, clearing his throat. A thick silence fell upon us.

“So, um… I’ve told you plenty about me. What about you?” I said, decidedly ignoring the thick tension that seemed to strangle me in place.

“What about me?” he said, cocking an eyebrow. Even the guy’s eyebrows were stupidly sexy. Was that even possible?

“How about, what do you do for a living?”

He looked away and cleared his throat. “I do odd jobs here and there.” The guy hardly struck me as unemployed. “What kind of odd jobs?” “This and that,” he hedged.

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, how about, why did my father set us up on this date? What kind of favor is that?”

“Your father arranged our date as a favor to my father. And as for why… Would you believe I found you to be the most intriguing woman I’d ever met the other night? That I wanted to get to know you better?”

The guy had been a primo asshole that night, and nothing about his demeanor hinted that he found me to be anything other than a giant pain in his ass.

“Who is your father?” I asked since the other line of questioning was getting me nowhere. “He’s an important man. He thought it was time I got back into the dating… scene.”

Oh.

So, Dominic didn’t want to be here any more than I did. His father had pushed him into it too. For just a moment, I felt a spark of something more than attraction to this man. It was a spark of camaraderie that I hadn’t expected. Dominic had been avoiding dating, just like me, and here we both were, forced together by our fathers.

“He thought I’d spent enough time hopping from one woman’s bed to the next, and insisted I try something… different.”

Ssss. Just like that, the spark fizzled out like a Dr Pepper being cracked open. Dominic didn’t avoid dating to avoid getting hurt; he avoided dating so he didn’t have to worry about being tied down to one woman. Just freaking wonderful. A rich playboy.

“Well, don’t let me keep you from your bed-hopping,” I said with more bitterness in my voice than I’d intended to let slip through.

He eyed me strangely, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite put together right. “You asked me a question, and I gave you an answer. It seems a little unfair that you’re glaring daggers at me over here.”

Maybe it was unfair of me, but too fucking bad. He was just another jerk who slept with every cute little thing he spoiled with his money and fancy restaurants.

“Sit down, Fallon,” he said in that same voice that made the butterflies in my stomach go wild.

I hadn’t even realized I’d stood up, but I had no intention of sitting back down. “Don’t tell me what to do.” I slammed my open palms down on the table. “I don’t know who the hell you are—clearly, you don’t want to tell me—and I don’t know what you want with me, but this date is just a farce, and it’s time for it to be over.” I grabbed my wallet from my purse, withdrew a few bills, and threw them on the table. I had no idea if it was too little or too much, but I couldn’t stand to be in a room with him any longer.

“I’m your ride, Miss Moore.” He sniffed loudly. “Sit down.”

There was that tone again, and though a teeny tiny part of me sparked to it, it damn sure wasn’t enough to keep me in this man’s vicinity any longer. “I would rather walk home on hot coals than spend another minute here with you, Mister… Oh hell, I don’t even know your last name. Goodnight, Dominic.”

I turned away and strode out of the restaurant, keeping my eyes down and pretending there weren’t dozens of Chanel-laiden people staring at me.

****

Dominic

“Fuck!” I roared, chucking the glass of whiskey in my hand across the room. I watched it smash against a wall opposite me, but somehow, it did nothing to alleviate the frustration coursing through my veins.

This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go at all. The woman had my blood boiling within just a split second of opening her mouth. I’d wined and dined her, just like a guy’s supposed to do—and at the best restaurant in the city, no less. I groaned, my jaw clenching tight.

Maybe it was time to call it and do things the easy way. Send our guys to grab her one night when she was closing up the clinic? Have them bring her to the family home and keep her there? My family wasn’t really down with kidnapping, but sometimes things just needed to be done—whether they fucking liked them or not. I sure as fuck didn’t want to get married. Why the hell wasn’t someone trying to wine and dine, and sweet-talk me into the fucked-up state of matrimony? The reason: because it was just something that needed to be done—whether I liked it or not. Maybe it was time Miss Fallon Moore learned about doing what needed to be done.

I dropped down into the chair behind my desk and scrubbed my fingers through my hair. Maybe I could rub out the memories of the monumental failure of a date and forget I’d ever agreed to Douglas Moore’s ridiculous plan. Perhaps I could erase the memory of Fallon in that sexy-as-fuck dress. And the way she toyed with her bottom lip when we walked into that restaurant, clearly out of her element. And the way her eyes flared with blue fire when she got pissed off. Scrub it all away, and do this the way it should have been done.

It was the smart plan. But as I tried to plan it in my head, Fallon’s eyes popped up there and wouldn’t leave. Innocent eyes, like Sofia’s, in a way. Neither of them had been polluted by the cold, dark world I lived in. Sofia never would be; she’d died sweet and innocent. But if I did this, it would all be gone for Fallon. No more innocence. No more believing in fairy tales or fucked up fantasies, or whatever the hell it was that made her look pure and untainted even in that crazy sexy dress. There would just be the real world. My world.