Page 2 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)

Ethan

I don’t give a fuck about Negronis.

They’re sour. Bland. Too much of a bite. And as I walk into Backporch and stalk straight back to my usual table, my eyes land on Izzy so hard and so fast my heart slams into my ribcage so hard it knocks the wind out of me.

Now there’s something I’d like to bite.

Suddenly I am wishing my pants weren’t so fitted. Should have gone with the looser slacks, more Sinatra and less Magic Mike. But it’s too late for that so I slide my mouth into a quarter of a smirk (not too much but enough) and offer more kindness than I’m feeling to the waiter.

“Is that a Negroni? I like it. I’ll take one of those.”

The kid shuffles off and I slide into the booth seat across from her, our knees brushing in the process.

It’s more inevitable than intention, what with being just under six-foot-five and all.

But I also don’t avoid it. She’s wearing a dress.

A dress that is hugging the hips she’s sprouted since the last time I saw her.

Hips that are symmetrical with the rack that is so superbly visible over the top of the table, held in only by the grace of what is most likely a strapless bra because her dress is shoulderless.

Strapless bras equal easier access. And oh how those tits look like they want to be freed…

“Hello Isabelle.” I say as I situated myself in my seat.

Izzy’s mouth twitches in an irritated smile. She hates when people call her Isabelle. Always has. Even as a kid, because yes I have known her that long, she would unhinge like a chihuahua any time someone said the name.

“My name is Izzy, not Isabelle.”

Being my best friend’s daughter, I enjoyed lovingly teasing her and would respond with, “Nice to meet you Izzy-Not-Isabelle.”

She’s just as unamused as she was back then.

Except now, she’s not a kid. Now, as she sits in front of me in a floral dress that hugs all her curves, curves I’ve never seen before, with reddish blond hair that curls around her heart shaped face and bright blue eyes that have me searching for the nearest emergency defibrillator just in case, Izzy-not-Isabelle is not the same girl I remember whatsoever.

She’s a woman.

And goddamn.

“Hello Ethan,” she says with enough salt to rim a margarita glass and I fight letting my smirk shift to a smile.

“You look good.” I say, browsing the small bite menu. But like I said, there’s only one thing I want to bite right now. Those lips. Maybe her soft powdery neck. Perhaps a thigh…

“Why are we here, Ethan?” Her tone is sharp, sharp enough the last work is a literal dagger. Still feisty as ever. But now? It’s less immature and entitled and more of a challenge…

I do love a challenge.

“Isabelle, you seem tense.” I say as the waiter sets down my drink and walks away.

“Izzy,” she snaps, stirring her drink with the cocktail straw more vigorously than necessary.

“That’s right.” I smile, leaning back into the booth and reaching for my own drink. I take a sip, not letting on that I’m not a fan of snake venom flavored booze. I’m more of a bourbon man. I like it smooth, strong, sweet and thick. Like honey. Like thighs…

I need to focus.

Izzy is my best friend’s only daughter and she’s half my age. If my math is right, and it is, she just turned thirty this year.

She is young and very off limits.

So I swallow a sip of my kitchen cleaner and move on.

“You could have just asked for what you like,” she says and I nearly choke.

“Sorry?”

Her eyes point at my glass. “Your drink. You’re a whiskey man. Bourbon neat if I remember right.”

“You are right,” I can’t help my smile now so I sit up straight and clear my throat. “I thought I’d be adventurous today. And I was hoping you’d consider the same, Izzy.”

I say the name she asked me to use. Every letter of the word ripples over her nerves and a blush pink travels from the swell of her breasts to her cheeks.

But Izzy blinks it back, taking a long sip from her glass, not bothering with the straw anymore.

I go on. “How’s work going for you?”

“Don’t be an ass,” she snaps and goddamn I wasn’t expecting that. I also don’t hate it.

I put up two hands, feigning innocence. “No offence intended.”

Izzy snorts a laugh. This woman truly is a cocktail of personality traits. Salty, sweet, sexy, cute. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”

“Have I?” I swirl the glass in my hand.

Izzy gives me a deadpan look. “Please. Everyone in the magazine world heard.”

She’s not wrong. Izzy was recently kicked to the curb by Slay, Denver’s most successful fashion magazine.

That sentence in its entirety is an oxymoron to me.

Fashion and success, it’s ridiculous that people pay to read about what other people are wearing.

All that aside, I know this because I work at Next Big Thing, the top dog of Denver’s business magazines as editor in chief.

The only person above me per say is Liam Sloane, Izzy’s dad, the CEO of the magazine.

While he owns NBT, I would argue that I run it.

Every article, every topic, every photo and interview run through me, the only exception being when Liam gets a wild hair to slip an article in that tastelessly yet tactfully rips the seams of another magazine’s good name in a cockfight way of keeping our name on top.

And that’s why we are here.

“You were fired,” I say flatly, setting my glass on the table. “From what I heard, and correct me if I am wrong, you wrote an article that shamed size-two girls for selling their bodies and souls to become the nuts and bolts of an industry designed to destroy real women for the sake of fashion. ”

“So you not only read about my demise, you read the article,” she says with a hint of something. Surprise? Or is she impressed?

“I did. And it was a damn good article, Izzy. Even if it did have you escorted from the building by your coattails.”

Izzy’s smile drops and her eyes heat up. “You find it funny that I lost my job for skinny-shaming a bunch of robots and calling out my bosses for feeding the monster that is the fashion world?”

Abso-fucking-lutely.

“Of course not.” I flag down the waiter and order a bourbon neat and another Negroni for Izzy.

“A move like that takes guts. Something not a lot of people in our industry have. You took a chance because it was ethically the right thing to do. And I admire that. Which is why I asked you to meet me today.”

Izzy’s brow scrunches in confusion. “I’m not following.”

“Your dad is a tycoon.”

“And?”

“He’s not the editor. Hell, the man doesn’t even write articles anymore. He just walks around with a name tag, looking over shoulders and passing to eighty-sixing articles with the wave of a hand.”

“You say that like I don’t know how my father is,” she says as we receive round two.

Izzy isn’t finished with her first and shoves the second aside.

I take a sip of my bourbon and suck the air between my teeth as the sweet liquid calms every nerve in my body.

“He’s egotistical, judgmental, harsh, cold and a bit of a narc. ”

“Ah so you know him.” I joke. She’s not smiling. Tough crowd.

I get to it. I lean in on the table, close enough she has to look right at me. Close enough that I can smell her honeysuckle perfume and that our knees are smashed together under the table in forced proximity. She swallows hard and I can hear it.

“Your father is a snake.” I say, my voice low and gritty. “I’m sure you know he enjoys shooting other local mags out of the sky with his low-blow articles that discredit them by digging up dirt on their journalists.”

“Most of that dirt isn’t even true. My dad is a fabulous storyteller,” she says and I can tell her mouth is dry by the way she is working her jaw.

I use one finger to slide her second glass closer to her but she doesn’t take it. She keeps her eyes locked on mine, waiting for the punchline.

I have never met a woman so innocently gorgeous and yet so professionally and intellectually my equal.

“And that is why I need better writers on my staff. Writers that know how to put up with him. I want to offer you a job.

“What?” She asks with more volume than she intends and Izzy glances around before looking back at me. “A job as a writer? For Next Big Thing? Working for my father?” She asks every question as if they’re statements. Like the whole thing is a joke.

“No. You’d be working for me. Under me.”

“Why?” She snaps out. “So everyone can give me shit there too? So my dad can make me feel like a failure to my face on a daily basis. Thanks but I’m going to have to pass.” She picks up her drink with a sassy smile, ready to take the first sip.

But I grab her other hand and she stops cold. “I would never let that happen. He’s my friend, sure. But that’s not why I am offering you a job. Fuck, he doesn’t even know I’m offering you a job.”

“Then why? Why would you, a successful business journalist, want me, a recent niche writer flop, want you to work for you?”

“Because I…you’re like family, Izzy. I don’t like seeing you lose everything.

You worked hard to get where you are in life.

I’ve watched. And I think it’s bullshit that some nose in the air editor who cares more about the Met Gala than she does about good, honest writing is able to discredit you like that. I want to help.”

I am usually one to keep my cards close to my chest. But right now, I am feeling something along the lines of protectiveness. Maybe even territorial.

I stare at her and she stares back. For the life of me I cannot read her thoughts. Her lips, perfect, cherry pink lips, bite together and she parts them just enough to take a small breath and speak. But she doesn’t say what I am expecting.

“I am not taking a charity job.”

“Excuse me?” I lean back, breaking all the unphysical contact between us and my eyes narrow into slits.

“I am not taking a pity job. I am perfectly capable of getting another job, for your information.”

“Oh really? And tell me, how many job offers have you gotten since you got booted?” I cross my arms over my chest and wait.

Izzy says nothing.

“That’s what I thought. This is not a charity offer, it’s a lifeline.”

“I don’t want it.” She punches out every syllable and heat rises inside me.

“You are a spoiled brat.”

“And you are pretentious.” She stands up and straightens her dress. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”

Izzy takes one step from the table and under her breath, she mumbles. “Fuck you.”

I shove up from my chair like a lightning bolt and step in front of her.

“What did you say?” I keep my voice low so we don’t cause a scene though I’m pretty sure people are curious. I don’t really care. I am caught between angry and turned on and I don’t love it. I also don’t want it to stop.

“I said fuck you.”

Her words graze across my skin and light every inch of me on fire.

I lean down and brush her curls around from her face. My lips brush the shell of her ear. “I think you mispronounced fuck me, sweetheart. I am doing you a favor. And I could do more than one…”

I can hear the faint, quick draw of air at my words and Izzy looks up at me. “I would never. I am not that kind of girl.”

“Of course not. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” I ask, playing with one of those curls and I can tell by the way she is shifting her weight that I am unraveling her with each tug.

It’s a tease. A joke. I’m kidding—I think—and obviously I don’t mean it.

I can’t. She’s off limits. Izzy reaches for her glass, never dropping eye contact with me, and I can tell this is about to get ugly.

I’ve seen this look before from women I’ve pissed off at bars in my younger, more reckless years.

I am about to get a cocktail to the face.

I close my eyes and brace for the inevitable but when I hear sipping, make that gulping, I open them again.

Izzy reaches around me, slams an empty glass on the table and her fingers graze the hem of my waistline just above my belt, nearly coming in contact with my cock that I had to tuck into it, and her eyes pull slowly from mine before she makes her way to the bathroom.

I’m not dense. Crazy, maybe. Impulsive for sure. But not stupid.

And I follow her.