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Liam walked into the kitchen holding the pizza box in one hand and the receipt in the other, the smirk still on his face.
“Well, that explains why it got here so fast.”
Playing dumb was her only defense. “What does?”
“The tip was more than the pizza.”
She let out a manufactured gasp and reached for the receipt, like she couldn’t believe it. “How did that happen?”
“Gee, I wonder.”
“I must have clicked the wrong button or something.”
Liam shot her a look. “So, you’re telling me there’s a button with an option to tip twenty dollars on an eighteen-dollar pizza?”
She tried to make her eyes wide and innocent as she shrugged her shoulder. “Maybe?”
After setting the pizza box on the island counter, he turned to her. “Baby, what did I say would be the only thing you could do to make me mad?”
She’d been feeling cheeky, but that’s all it took to make her contrite.
Her shoulders drooped in defeat, and she looked down at the table when she whispered, “Lie to you.”
“So, do you want to stick to your story?”
Utah mulled it over quietly. The stubborn, proud part of her really, really wanted to dig her heels in. But the thought of him mad at her was more than she could bear.
“I tipped the driver twenty dollars.”
Liam approached her cautiously. “Why?”
She kept her gaze on the blue plates on the wooden table.
“Because I’m mad at you.”
“For…?”
“For saying you’re going to punish me for being sassy, when you know perfectly well that’s just how I am. So basically, you’re punishing me for being me.”
She wasn’t expecting him to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her against his hard chest.
“I would never punish you for being you. You’re right, I do love it when you’re feisty. But you’re smart enough to know when to be a good girl, and I think you have enough self-discipline to behave yourself, so that leads me to believe that you were being a brat on purpose.”
“I was not.”
He pulled back and looked down at her—his eyebrows in his hairline.
“So, you normally tip the delivery driver over a hundred percent?”
Utah let out a frustrated sigh. “I think we’ve already established that I don’t always know when to behave myself. If I did, I wouldn’t be in this predicament, now would I?”
The corner of his mouth hitched. “That’s where the punishment comes in, baby.”
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And I’m a man of my word.”
She shifted her weight, even as he kept his arm banded around her waist.
