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“You look beautiful,” he said, his blue eyes raking my body from head to toe.
An unwanted shiver raced down my spine, and I fought off the goose bumps that wanted to pepper my arms.
“These are for you.” He held out the most colorful bouquet of fresh flowers I’d ever seen in my life. They were stunning in their simplicity, tied together with a piece of twine.
I snapped my jaw shut as I took them from his hands, the weight of them catching me by surprise. “Thank you,” I said slowly, more than a little confused. Why would he bring me flowers, anyway?
“I’m not sure why he didn’t bring me flowers,” Grant muttered, and I directed my focus to him, putting some space between Ryan and me.
“I’m not sure either. Ryan, care to answer that?” I asked.
It was adorable the way he shifted his weight from one foot to the other when I put him on the spot, clearly a little uncomfortable before he fought back with a dimpled smile.
“What the hell would he do with flowers?” He jerked his thumb toward Grant. “He’d probably throw them in the trash the second I walked out. Or give them to some nurse and pretend he bought them for her. I knew you’d at least appreciate them,” he said with a wink.
A wink? Ryan probably meant it to be charming, but all it did was send me crash-landing back to reality where he was a womanizer, and I was, for whatever reason, his latest conquest attempt.
“They’re very pretty,” I said halfheartedly.
His shoulders slumped with his exhale. “Pretty enough that you’ll consider going out with me?”
As I tried to form an answer, I moved to the side of the bed, placing the flowers on the nightstand to give myself a moment to think.
Grant burst out laughing. “You don’t even have to answer, angel. Your face says it all. This is too good.”
“But I want an answer,” Ryan said over Grant’s chortling, taking a step closer to me.
I turned to face him, almost forgetting that anyone else was in the room. “I can’t go out with you.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Ryan pinned me with his intense gaze as he took another step closer.
My breath caught, and I stumbled over my response. “Does it matter?”
One more step. “It does to me. Can’t or won’t?”
Ryan was close now, so close I caught his scent with every breath.
His head cocked to the side, his eyes never leaving mine. “Can’t or won’t, angel?” he whispered.
How the heck was I supposed to answer that? I couldn’t go out with Ryan because there was no point. He wasn’t a good role model for Matson, and the bar life wasn’t something I was interested in being a part of.
Ryan and his brothers had been on reality TV shows more than once, and were regularly featured in online and local magazines. He wasn’t a celebrity, per se, but he was treated like one. That wasn’t the type of atmosphere I wanted to raise my son in.
So no, I couldn’t go out with Ryan. And I wouldn’t for the same reasons.
“If you’re done harassing my girlfriend here, don’t you have a bar to run?” Grant said gruffly, and I could have kissed him, so grateful for the interruption.
Ryan’s gorgeous blue eyes narrowed at Grant but softened when he looked back at me. Thank God he stepped away, because now I felt like I could breathe again.
“I do have to get back to work. Promise me you’ll at least think about giving me a chance, angel. Just one chance. It’s all I’ll need.”
Offering him a tight-lipped smile, I shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” It was a lie, and Ryan knew it.
He headed toward the door but stopped and turned to look right through me. “Here’s the thing. You think you know me, but you don’t. I know what the women at my bar say about me, but that doesn’t make it true. I’d like to take you out and see if there’s something more here than just what I feel every time I see you. I know you feel it too, but for some reason, you’re pretending you don’t.”
An uncomfortable laugh bubbled up from his throat.
“Hell, maybe you really do hate me? But I’m betting that’s not true either. Maybe you’re scared of what this could be? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this. I’m not giving up. One chance. One date. That’s all I’m asking.”
