Page 21 of The Bad Boy Prince in Love

“Anyway, don’t let us keep you, Eloise,” Hallie said, “I’m sure you’ve got a lot to discuss with my mama.”

“Of course I do,” Eloise said, “You should join us, Hallie.We’ve got a lot of money to raise for the church charity drive, and we could use all the help we can get.”

“Uh...Thanks, but maybe not this time,” Hallie said.

“All right, I’ll see y’all soon,” Eloise said with a blindingly white-toothed smile before walking primly to the house.

Despite her prim walk, Luke seemed mesmerized by her figure.

“Hello, your ‘girlfriend’ is over here,” Hallie reminded him.

“Why don’t you want to help with the church fundraiser?”Luke wondered, finally taking his eyes off Eloise’s bottom.

“Why don’t you keep your mouth shut and not flirt with Miss Prissy-pants?”Hallie fired back, throwing his arm off her as soon as Eloise entered the house.

“Oh, I’m not allowed to be polite?”

“That was being way more than polite, and you know it!”Hallie whipped her head around to see if Johnny was watching, but the teenage ranch hand was heading for the stables with his wheelbarrow.He was too smart to get in the middle of this.

“Or maybe you’re just reading too much into it because you want me for yourself?”Luke asked.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to be with me, remember?”

“But not really,” he countered.“Maybe I’m just not good at pretending.Maybe I’m looking for a real relationship.”

“A real relationship, yeah right,” she said with disdain.

“What?You don’t believe I’d like to try it?”

“No, frankly, I don’t.We just met, and you don’t know a thing about me.”

He smiled cunningly.“Why don’t you let me get to know you?”

This might have worked when Hallie was just a naïve college student looking for her first love, but certainly not now.

All the guys she met at the time only wanted one-night stands, and usually they were pretty honest about it.They didn’t even try to pretend they wanted to get to know her.

It was pretty typical of college students, of course, but she also knew of other girls who met their partner in college.There was a particularly annoying couple who lived in her dorm.They looked perfect together, the girl was blonde with a lovely symmetrical face, and the guy was almost equally pretty, with light brown hair and a gorgeous body.They always seemed to have eyes only for each other, treating each other with ridiculously tender care.

So why was Hallie only seen as someone to have a good time with?Maybe she’d been too much of a wide-eyed country girl.Or it could have been just bad luck in not meeting the right person.Anyway, she was over it.Luke was probably just pretending to be interested in a relationship with her, and even if he wasn’t, what chance did she have to keep his attention for very long?

After all, he seemed to think of himself as quite the catch, too good for the likes of her.

“Why are you so afraid of a real relationship?”Luke asked.

Hallie had a lot to say on the matter, but not to him.As the sounds of Johnny’s shovel scraping away reached them from within the stables, Hallie waited a few moments to compose herself.

“I have my reasons,” she said, “And I don’t have to tell you about them.”

“Maybe not now, but I hope you can tell me one day.”

She liked that he wasn’t pushy about it, but that he was interested.The way he spoke to her, it sounded like he truly cared.