Page 4 of Marrying the Billionaire Single Dad

I straighten my spine, hitch my backpack over my shoulder, then proceed toward Amelie. She pulls her hair to one side of her face and blue fire flashes on her left ring finger. Well, hell, so her boyfriend proposed, huh? Good for him. Unlike my ex, who’d decided he’d rather have sex with another woman, never mind that I was bound to walk in on them. Yep, my life is one never-ending cliché.

"Julia doesn't suffer fools gladly," I hear her tell Damian.

"And rock stars?" Damian grins back at her. "What does she think of them?

What the hell—? Why is he talking about me as if I am not in the room?

"Why don't you ask me directly?" I challenge.

Damian jerks his chin up, "Better still, how about I show you...?"

"Show me, huh?" I plant my hands on my hips, "You ain't got nothin’ that I haven't seen before."

"Don't bet on it." The too-full-of-himself asshole stares down that hooked nose at me. His blue gaze narrows and those cerulean eyes seem to bore into my soul. A shiver runs up my spine. This man? His presence is potent. He leans in close and the heat of his body slams into my chest. All of my nerve endings seem to fire at once. Damn him. Why am I so drawn to him?

"I don't bet." I school my features into a mask of indifference. "I prefer certainties—a path to my goal, one from which I never veer."

"Is that a challenge?" He curls his lips, and that smirk... OMG. That upper lip of his seems to thin further. Combined with that puffy lower lip, that square jaw, the tendons of his gorgeous throat that stand out in relief and highlight the hollow at the base of his throat... Hell... He's lethal, all right. And too handsome to be real. Guys like him exist on the covers of magazines, in online memes that I drool over in secret. Nah, he occupies a different world, a rarefied space I have no intention of joining. So what, if I am attracted to him?

"Take it any way you like." I raise a shoulder. "I don’t care."

There is an indrawn breath. I turn to find Amelie staring at me with huge eyes. She shakes her head, moves toward me, only her fiancé pulls her back. He whispers in her ear. She blinks and her cheeks turn pink. He pivots her around and they walk off, leaving me alone with this reprobate of the first order...aka, this big, grumpy male who glares at me with... Something like intent in his eyes.

The hair on the back of my neck rises. My stomach trembles. "Ah... I... I guess I should circulate among the guests. Uh... Don't want to seem impolite or anything, know what I mean?"

I turn to leave, take a step forward, then another. Okay... Maybe this is going to be fine. I'll just sidle out of here and— Warm fingers encircle my wrist. I am pulled around, and hauled up against the massive chest of the afore-mentioned douche canoe... My breasts are plastered against those ripped abs, which I can feel through the T-shirt he wears under his jacket. I gulp and my knees tremble... They bloody tremble. "Let go of me," I demand.

"Make me."

"What?" I narrow my gaze on that sinful-as-fuck face. "You release me right now or else—"

"Or else?" He peels back his lips and his teeth gleam against the tan of his sculpted features. At my silence, he continues, "You were saying—"

"That this is a misunderstanding." I huff. "I am not interested in you."

"Neither am I in you." He widens his stance.

"Doesn’t seem that way from where I am, buster."

"How much control on your anger can you muster?" He tilts his head.

"Just because you think—mistakenly—that you're superior?" I flip my hair over my shoulder.

"I am going to break through your tightly controlled exterior."

"Wait." I gape, "Did you rhyme your words to mine?"

"So did you."

"No, I didn’t."

"Yes, you did." He grins and my stupid heart stutters. It bloody stutters.

He peers down into my face, his blue eyes glittering. "So much sass," he growls. "I wonder how it would be to peel back the mask you wear to the world, to unveil the passion that lurks under the surface, to show you how it could be if the right man were to touch you in your secret places, the ones you think you have hidden away,” his voice lowers to a hush, “but which I can see, feel, touch, suck..."

My core clenches. I swear my panties self-combust.

"I don’t care for self-obsessed, insufferable, prats," I declare. "You've got the wrong woman."