“You just have to.” God, he wasn’t used to people arguing with him.
“That sounds suspicious.” She eyed him peculiarly.
“Just agree to it so we can get to the vet and then get to work before lunchtime.”
She studied him for a moment, and then nodded tentatively. “But it better not be something . . . you know, like, something . . . bad.”
“Bad?” His mind immediately plummeted into the gutter.
“I watched a program about this guy that was laundering money for a drug cartel. He also worked in an office and dressed in an expensive suit like you . . . so you never know, these days.”
He blinked a few times—this was the last thing he’d expected to hear—and then he burst out laughing. “You think I launder money for drug dealers?”
“No.” She bit her lip. “I’m just saying that I don’t want to do anything dodgy.”
“You think I’m dodgy?” He was amused.
“You’re twisting my words.” She sounded frustrated.
“I don’t think so. You were very clear.”
She opened her mouth to say something but closed it again and shook her head as if she’d changed her mind.
“Just agree already. We don’t have all day,” he said.
“Fine, fine.”
“See, was that so hard?” He walked to the front of the car and got in. He glanced in his rear-view mirror and watched her fiddling around in the trunk trying to make the pigeon comfortable.
She was totally, utterly and insanely exasperating!
So why the hell was he trying to hide his smile?
CHAPTERTWENTY
Poppy
I took the expensive, shiny-looking shoes out of the box so I could put the pigeon in it. I momentarily thought about putting the pigeon on top of the shoes and letting it shit on them as punishment for even thinking that we should leave it on the side of the road. And then something caught my eye . . .
I stretched out my arm and reached further into the trunk to fetch it. I held it between my hands and stared at the thing.
A hairpin. A women’s hairpin.In the back of his car. In the trunk. How did that even get here? Unless . . .
I quickly put it back down where I found it. It hadn’t crossed my mind, not once, not for a second, that Ryan Stark would have a wife or girlfriend. He didn’t wear a wedding band and I’d just assumed that a grumpy, mean workaholic like him wouldn’t really have a life outside of the steel and glass Stark building.
But now I had proof that he had another life. I also had proof that he wasn’t nearly as mean as he liked everyone to think he was. This trip to the vet was proof of this. One minute I got the impression that he was cold on the inside, that ice ran through his veins, but then in the next moment I got a glimpse of something else, something that might actually be a heart.
I did have some reservations about what the hell I had agreed to do later for him, though.
“NO! Absolutely no! Never. No, and not on my watch.” I glared at the vet.
She looked at me empathetically. “I didn’t become a vet to put animals down, but a pigeon with a broken wing is never going to survive in the wild again. It would be cruel to release it. It will be eaten by the next dog or cat, or run over.”
“Well, then it won’t go back to the wild,” I said firmly.
“Huh?” Ryan looked confused.
“I’ll take him home. I’ll look after him.”
