“I did.”
He frowned. “What’s in them?”
“Not a lot. Just some high quality chocolate—the kind I always use—some cream and a splash of rum. Two different kinds.”
A tiny muscle in his jaw ticked, indicating his inner turmoil. She recalled how he used to do that when dealing with the intense pressure he faced from his parents. His father was some sort of powerful businessman. Banking, maybe. And his mother sat on various executive boards. Attend this exclusive boarding school, they’d tell him. Apply to these prestigious colleges. Do this in order to follow in your father’s footsteps. And for godssake, don’t lower your standards and settle for that townie girl you only see in the summer.
“The rum,” he barked. “Get me the bottles.”
She took them off the shelf and handed them to him. Crossing her arms, she waited for an explanation.
He completely ignored the brand name bottle and focused on the unlabeled one, holding it up to the light. “Where did you get this?”
“My customer provided it for me to use.” She explained that she’d thought it tasted a little strange and that the truffles hadn’t set up like they normally did, so she’d had to use both types.
With a disgusted look on his face, he stared at the bottle. “Yeah, it’s this rum all right.”
A feeling of dread began to form in her abdomen. Why hadn’t she listened to her intuition and not used it? “Something’s…wrong with it?”
“You could say that.”
“Oh my God.” As the potential demise of the business she’d worked so hard to build flashed before her eyes, she pulled out her phone. Having your best customer get sick from your food would not be a good thing.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
“Paula’s not picking up, so I’m calling my customer directly. I need to warn—”
“No.” He took the phone from her, and before she could protest, he stormed out with it and the bottle.
She stood there in the center of the kitchen, mouth open in stunned silence. He returned a moment later, the bottle gone. A thick thatch of hair hung over one eye, making him look wild and uncontrollable.
“Get your things, Selena.” When she didn’t immediately jump to do as she was told, he growled, “Now.”
Like hell she was. She needed answers. “You can’t just show up out of the blue like this, literally freak out, then order me around like a damned lunatic.”
“Selena. Now.”
“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “Not until you tell me what’s going on and give me back my phone.”
His eyes glinted with an icy, unbending coldness. “You’ve got two choices. Either you walk out with me or I carry you. What is it going to be?”
She’d never seen him like this before. When they’d been together, sure, he’d been passionately protective of her at times, but he’d also been sweet, kind, and very considerate. She’d never felt as if she didn’t have a choice.
Surely, he hadn’t gotten into that gross pickup artist world, where guys treated you like a piece of shit thinking that would help them score. Or maybe he was confused about the BDSM world. Although she didn’t know much about it outside of the erotic romances she loved to read, it seemed to her that he was acting like a bossy-ass Dom who considered her his Sub. Well. If that was what he was into these days, fine, but they didn’t have an agreement or understanding. He couldn’t barge in and expect her to do what he said. That wasn’t the way her world worked. He was going to treat her respectfully, like an equal, or he could get the hell out.
Folding her arms over her chest, she stood her ground. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Mateo Carerra, until you tell me exactly what is going on. Starting with why you came here.”
“Suit yourself.”
In the blink of an eye, he swept her up and slung her over his shoulder like a freaking sack of potatoes.
What the hell!
“Put me down,” she screamed, kicking at his chest with her knees and feet, and pummeling his back with her fists. Screw that he was bigger and more muscular than she remembered. She didn’t care. She kept wailing on him with all her might. How utterly arrogant and appalling of him to do this to her. It was wrong. Humiliating. And so unlike the man that she remembered.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath.
Yay.She must’ve hit a sensitive spot.
Little good that did however, because he only gripped her legs tighter. After grabbing her handbag from the back room, he locked up the place without shifting her from his shoulder.
She literally hated Mateo Carrera with the fiery passion of a thousand blazing suns.
And before she knew it, they were in his car, speeding down the highway.
