by Faye Avalon
She gave him a gentle pat on his forearm. “Thanks, Angus.”
Angus hung for a second. “You need anything else before I go?” Angus gave a slight head nod toward Gael, his offer clear.
“Nah. I got it.” She stood and moved to the glass counter at the front of the store. She could take Gael. There was the folding knife in her back pocket, the baseball bat beneath the front counter and the industrial-size bottle of Mace near the register. Not that a banker would ever give her that kind of trouble. They only robbed people blind if it was technically legal. Cowards, the lot of them. She’d never forget the look on the banker’s face as he’d delivered the news to her father that there was nothing he could do—the bank owned their house now, and they had twenty-four hours to get out.
“Okay, then. See you around,” Angus said.
“’Bye, big guy,” Mags called as Angus slid on out, bumping the suit’s shoulder as he went, and Mags had to hide a smile. Angus hated suits as much as she did. The suit said nothing, but he stared at Angus’s retreating back, probably working out whether or not he could sue him in civil court for the bump.
Mags went to the register and dumped the cash inside. She was ignoring Gael, even though she was well aware of his presence. How could she not be? He was like a bright neon light, a chiseled, muscled, manly neon light.
“I need this tattoo.” His voice rumbled in her belly. There was power in that voice. He moved closer to the register, and she got a whiff of something sweet and spicy—cologne? Of course a suit would wear cologne. But she kind of liked it, despite herself.
“Why? Midlife crisis?” She didn’t bother to keep the disdain from her voice.
“No. I made a promise.” His green eyes never left hers, and for the briefest of seconds, she imagined what that voice would be like talking about naughty things. How his gravelly bass would sound whispering naughty things in her ear. Then she shook herself. Why was she imagining the suit talking dirty? Clint had been cuffed for five minutes, and she was acting sex depraved.
“Look, I don’t want to hear it. I’m not doing that tattoo.” Even thinking about Shaded Moon made her feel vulnerable. And she was no victim. She hated the feeling. Hated feeling like she wasn’t in control. It was her life, her rules. It had been that way since she was seventeen. She’d been on her own for a whole lifetime. She’d learned to take care of herself.
So why did the suit make her feel uncertain?
“But...” His smile wavered.
“I said no.” Her stomach growled again. All she wanted was some food, preferably the greasy kind, and for the suit to leave her in peace. If that made her the bad guy, then she’d be the bad guy. She wasn’t in the mood to be generous. The sting from Clint’s rejection didn’t help, either. She told herself she didn’t care he’d latched himself on to a barmaid, but still, part of her did. She could feel a lot of feelings swirling around the murky pit of her stomach, and that made her grumpy. She didn’t like the feels. She preferred to keep her emotions stuffed into a lockbox she kept deep inside her. They didn’t need to come out. When they came out, bad things happened.
“Surely there’s some way we can negotiate this. I’ll double your hourly rate.” The man was actually reaching for his damn wallet again. He pulled it out this time and grabbed some sleek black metal card. He actually put it down on her glass counter, and it landed with a resounding plink of metal against glass. Nothing written on it. Mags had seen one only once before. She knew it was one of those limitless cards. She’d heard that was the kind of card you could buy a car with. Or, hell, even a house.
“No. All I want is a double cheeseburger and some peace and quiet.”
Genuine shock bloomed on Gael’s face, and Mags liked it. How do you like feeling off-kilter, Mr. Suit?
“Come on. Let’s talk about this. Please.” That bass voice, and that smile again. Full wattage this time.
“Get out.” She crossed her arms across her chest, liking the power she was wielding over him. A bit too much. Still, she wouldn’t take a sleek metal card. She wasn’t for sale.
“I’ll give you twenty times your rate. And that’s my final offer.” He was serious. She did a quick calculation. He was talking about $10,000. His single tattoo would pay her rent, her salary and her clerk’s salary for the month. She considered it for exactly half a second. Then she cursed herself for even doing that. She wasn’t for sale. Period. “You should leave,” she told him.
He blinked fast, still baffled and desperately trying to get handle on her. He wasn’t used to being kicked out of places, clearly. He was used to talking his way into anything. Well, not this time. If this one time she could hand a suit a loss, she would.
“I—”
“I told you to leave.” Mags’s voice left no room for argument. She pointed to the door. “That means get out.”
Copyright © 2020 by Cara Lockwood
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ISBN-13: 9781488062339
Fast Deal
Copyright © 2020 by Faye Avalon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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