Page 13 of Revenge Puck

I shake my head. “I’m good.”

She nibbles her bottom lip nervously. “Want to tell me about your long, bad day?”

A curt headshake. “Nope.” I pause. “You want to tell me about your shitty date?”

Her position shifts on the couch, and she settles deeper into the cushions, pleased to have a topic to grab on to. “I’ve been dating this guy named Preston.” She laughs softly. “His name should have been the first red flag, right?”

“That is a douchey name,” I agree.

Her eyes light up. “Tonight he ordered me a drink without asking what I wanted. Which would be fine, if he knew what I liked.”

There are worse offenses, I guess. “Strike one?”

“I’d asked him out because…” She sucks in a breath. “I have a new job—one I’m really excited and passionate about. One that pays.” Another small laugh. “And this asshole had the nerve to say, ‘But you’re not actually the one making decisions, right?’ He said that! To my face!”

“Christ. He does indeed sound like an asshole.” My jaw involuntarily tightens. “Guys who talk down to women like that are pieces of shit.”

“Wait, there’s more.” She gets more animated. “He implied I only got the job because of nepotism!”

I don’t ask for details. “That’s strike twoandthree.”

She nods emphatically. “Sofreaking rude. Then he had the freaking nerve to tell me I was being sensitive. Me! Sensitive.”

I bite back a smirk. I don’t say it, but she looks like the sensitive type. Too sweet and too kind and too trusting. Not in a weak way, in afeels things deeplykind of way.

As if an unkind word might break her.

She leans back into the couch cushion, sipping from her glass. “I knew I should’ve trusted my instincts. Probably shouldn’t have agreed to keep going out with him.” A long sigh. “Such a shame. He looked so good on paper.”

“Paper. That’s how they get ya.”

Her eyes brighten in my direction. “Exactly.” She takes another sip of her drink. “Okay. Your turn.”

“My turn for what?”

“Long bad day. Go.”

My brood settles back in. “I would rather not.”

Her lips part.

She sips from her glass. “W-what would you rather do?”

I glance at her, give her a good, long look.

Blonde hair that isn’t sexy like Bailey’s—it’s soft. Loose. She has a fucking ribbon tied in it, for Christ’s sake. The satin bow is tied as a headband, hair falling long and wavy around her shoulders, totally out of place in a moment like this. She should be rumbled and in sweatpants and…

The bow is pink, of course.

This woman is giving innocent in all the ways I’m not used to, and that’s a problem, isn’t it? She looksgoodand pure in ways that have nothing to do with lust.

Our gazes connect again.

“What would you rather do?” she asks again, without stuttering.

She sets her wine glass down on the coffee table, the soft clink the only sound in the room. Then she looks back at me expectantly.

Waiting.