Page 9 of Over & Out (Redbeard Cove #3)
But she doesn’t look wounded. She looks pissed.
She’s clenching her jaw so tight it looks like she’s going to break a tooth.
And there’s a pretty little vein throbbing in the column of her throat.
I stare at that a shade too long before remembering myself and bringing my gaze back to her face.
As Mabel takes the opportunity to go off on some talking points for a meeting we have to do later, I keep my eyes laser focused on Chris, willing her to capitulate.
That’s the thing about being a celebrity.
Most of the time, it’s a colossal pain in the ass.
A thing I war with because I’m beyond privileged to have what I have, even though I never wanted to go down this path in the first place.
But I can wield it when I need to. I’ve defused bar fights just by showing up.
Made a kid’s wish come true by dressing up in a cape and mask with him in his hospital room.
And when someone’s being a pain in the ass?
Well, it’s handy to be me. People get flustered.
Women get nervous. Or flattered. Or something.
Like clockwork. It’s not me, it’s the persona, the image. But I’ll still use it when need be.
But this woman? I’m more than a little surprised that even after a solid minute of me staring her down, she never breaks eye contact.
I don’t even think she blinks. Finally, when Tru asks her something, she looks away.
But it’s not coy. It’s like she sized me up and found me lacking.
Like only other people deserve her real attention.
I wait for her to look back. But she doesn’t.
Not after a minute, not after five. Not even when I toss back the last of my coffee, set the mug in the sink, and lean back on the counter the way GQ made me do for their cover shoot last month.
Instead, she readjusts her bracelets, like she’s fucking bored .
What the hell?
Embarrassed that I stooped so low as to try to thirst-trap her into submission, I jerk the t-shirt I’m still holding over my head.
But my head gets stuck in the hole because I’ve tried to stick my head through the arm like a flustered idiot.
“Goddamned piece of—” I whip it off. She hasn’t flustered me.
I flip it the right way and yank it on a second time.
“That’s getting washed today,” Cindi says helpfully.
They’ve all stopped talking to watch me. Fuck. “It can get washed tomorrow.”
Some days, Cindi might come over and peel it off me like a frustrated mom.
Today, she seems to see I’m not in the mood.
I hate that people have to know what I’m in the mood for.
I hate more that Tru hired this particular woman to take her place.
But even more than that, I hate that, for a moment, I thought she was her.
I run my hands over my hair, then focus on Tru. “I know I said you could hire whoever you wanted, but I don’t want her .”
This was a bad thing to say, and not only because it’s not subtle or kind. It also shows my mind hasn’t moved on from her like the conversation did five minutes ago. But right now, I don’t care. I meant it. It can’t be her.
Chris’s lips tighten, her fists balling on either side of her snazzy little pantsuit.
“Listen,” I say. “It’s not personal, okay? You’re just not?—”
“Hop,” Tru says in a very controlled tone. “She’s perfect.”
That morning at the restaurant, I was in the foulest of foul moods.
I drank myself silly the night before with some dude I met in a bar the next town over.
He had no idea who I was. It was fucking glorious.
We just bro’d down. I don’t normally do that, but getting drunk alone because I couldn’t handle being back here was a shade too close to the way my dad handled problems. But the next morning, she was the thorn in my side I did not need. And I don’t need her now.
I look at the woman again. “She pissed me off.”
“You pissed me off!” she exclaims. She said it a little too quickly to be calm and collected.
That should make me happy. But it just makes me feel like a bigger heap of shit. So, of course, I don’t quit. Hopper Donnach in a hole? Throw me a fucking shovel. “I’m pissing you off?” I say. “Guess what you’re doing right now, sugar?”
To the side, I see Adrian slip Mabel a hundred-dollar bill.
“Are you kidding?” I say. “You’re betting on me?”
“I’m betting on Chris, actually,” Mabel says.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Adrian says apologetically to her.
“You know what? Maybe you’re right,” Chris says to me.
“Damn straight I’m right.” I scrunch my brows. About what, though?
“I don’t see how this is possibly going to work. Not when you’re too goddamned entitled to see that your incredible assistant wants the best for you. Not that I have any earthly idea why.”
Adrian holds his hand out to Mabel, who slips the hundred back .
Heat fists my insides. “Okay, then. Sorry for the trouble. We’ll see you later.”
Chris’s mouth falls open, real hurt crossing her expression. I have to look away, because I can’t handle the way that pinches something deep behind my ribs.
“Hopper!” Tru says. Tru has many different voices.
I know them all. I listen to them all. But for the first time in a long time, she sounds genuinely upset.
She sets her hands before her in a prayer gesture.
“Everyone, can we have the room, please?” She reaches out and holds on to Chris’s arm. “Not you.”
The rest of them sigh and march out to the back deck. I press my fingers to my hips, look to the ceiling, and brace myself for Tru to yell at me. It’s what she does when she gets super pissed.
But she doesn’t yell. When I look back down at her, she’s staring at me, cool as a cucumber. Then she points a finger. “Hopper Donnach. If you don’t give Chris a chance, you’re going to have no one when I’m gone. And I’m going next week, whether you like it or not.”
“Next week?” Her stomach looks big, but I have no idea how pregnant people work.
“Yes, next week.”
“So we still have a week.”
“No, you idiot! We don’t have a week!” Now she’s yelling. And god dammit, it looks like she might cry. My heart sinks like a stone. If I had a sister, I imagine she’d be like Tru. An absolute pain in my ass who I love the shit out of.
I panic, just a little. I think that’s what makes me fold. That and the expression on Chris’s face. For making Tru almost cry, she looks at me like I came out of a bird’s ass and splattered into her lemonade.
“Okay. Fine!” I snap. “We’ll do it, okay?” I look at Chris. “Okay?”
“Thanks so much for giving me a chance.”
“You’re wel—” Then I get she’s being sarcastic. I grit my teeth. “Listen, I obviously can’t force you to stay. But Tru?—”
“No.” She takes a step forward, and I can’t help but be impressed, even in the midst of this shitstorm.
She’s short. Tiny, almost. But she has the presence of a club bouncer.
“Tru is the only reason I’m still here. The only reason.
” She looks calm as hell. But there—right there, at the soft, pale curve of her throat again, her pulse flashes.
Her cheeks, too, have gone a rosy shade that, under any other circumstances, I might find cute.
More than cute. Fucking hot. And suddenly, I remember something else.
That morning, I couldn’t tell whether she was pissing me off or turning me on.
Now that I can properly take her in, I have to concede it could have gone either way.
She’s pretty, but not in that sculpted Hollywood way.
Everything about Chris is kind of off from perfect: A slightly crooked nose, like she broke it as a kid.
More freckles on one side of that nose than the other.
Teeth a little too big for her mouth. A mole right in her hairline.
And that hair—fuck. It’s dirty blond, but with a hint of strawberry in it.
Though it falls just past her shoulders, it’s not neat and tidy.
It’s rumpled. Like she just rolled out of bed.
I picture her hopping into her clothes, cursing, splashing coffee on the counter.
The image is somehow more intimate than anything actually intimate.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry, is there something on my face?” Chris asks, the words slapping me back to reality. She’s sexy, cute as hell, and quick-minded, since she has a goddamned comeback for everything. But she has the personality of a pissed-off mongoose.
“Just your face,” I say happily, knowing Tru’s going to kill me for saying it.
That face goes hard. Then she says, “Nope.” She pops the P . “Sorry, Tru. I tried, I really did.”
And then? Then she walks the fuck out.