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Why had she let the conversation get this far? Talking about what she’d done only emphasized the stupidity of it.
“Yes.”
“So, your boss told you to get out because you wouldn’t play the tune?”
“Not exactly. See, the guy who’d asked me to play that song was drunk.”
His face seemed to darken. “Did he do something to you? Did he touch you?”
“No,” she said quickly, “nothing like that. He was just drunk. And he had an open bottle of beer in his hand. He pointed it at me.”
“And?”
“And…” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s too embarrassing.”
Marco put his finger lightly under her chin, lifted her face until their eyes met.
“Tell me.”
“The beer spilled. Over me.”
Marco said something in Italian. Italian was one of the four languages Emily could speak and what he’d said wasn’t very nice but it was well-deserved. She thought of telling him that, but why prolong this conversation?
“So I grabbed the bottle from him.” She paused. “There was still beer left in it.”
“And?” he said again.
She gave a little shrug. “And I shoved it upside down into the top of his pants and all the beer poured out and—”
Marco snorted.
“Don’t laugh at me! It isn’t funny! If I hadn’t done such a—such a dumb, impetuous thing—”
Laughter rumbled from his chest
“I wish I had been there to see it!”
She blinked. “You do?”
“Trust me, Emily. The world is filled with fools who could use a good dousing in beer.”
His smile, his laughter were impossible to resist. Emily laughed, too.
“My boss was horrified.”
“What is the name of this place again? I’ll pay him a visit. He should not have fired you. He should have stood by you.”
“No. Please, never mind. He’d only give you a hard time.”
She looked so serious, it made him want to smile, but what he most wanted was to give in to temptation and take one of those curls between his fingers.
“I am not afraid of hard times, Emily.” To hell with it. He not only smiled, he reached out and caught hold of a curl. It felt like silk. “And you are very brave.”
She smiled. “Not without a tube of lipstick in my hand.”
“I mean it. You put a drunken fool in his place, stood up to a stranger, withstood a monsoon…” His gaze fell to her lips, rose to her eyes. “And you risked everything by accepting his offer of a ride home. A tigress, indeed.”
Silly, she knew that his praise should send a rush of warmth through her.
