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“First off,” she held up a finger, “I have dated, a lot. I just know when it’s just dating and nothing serious,” she said pointedly.
“What are you saying?” Angie demanded. “I loved Eric!”
“Uh huh, and how long did you date him?” she asked, sick of playing this game every couple of weeks. Maybe if she pissed them off, they wouldn’t invite her anymore. One could hope.
“Three weeks! Three of the best weeks of my entire life!”
“My point exactly. You were just dating. Nothing more. Have you guys ever thought that maybe the reason so many guys dump you is because you get too serious way too soon?” she asked.
The three of them shared a look before scoffing. “No, we’re just very lovable. We know true love when we see it,” Melissa insisted.
“Uh huh, have you ever found it odd that the three of you find true love on a weekly basis?”
“Gawd, you’re so insensitive!”
Marty just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. This was pathetic. No, not having anything better to do than come here and listen to this nonsense was pathetic. Maybe she needed a hobby?
“She’s just bitter because no real men want her. She goes after losers,” Melissa snapped, drawing Marty away from her musings.
“I’m sorry. What's this now?” Marty asked, sure that she'd misheard her.
“You know exactly what I said. You haven’t really dated. Don’t think we haven’t noticed. You only agree to go out with guys you know that you’re not interested in.”
Marty waved a hand impatiently to get them to focus. “What’s this about no real men wanting me?”
Instead of answering her, they all gaped at her, well, a few inches past her shoulder to the right.
“What about me?” a familiar deep voice asked right next to her freaking ear!
Oh no, the man she’d been avoiding since Friday night had found her. This could not be good. Not at all. She’d publically humiliated him. Actually, according to the web hits, it was more like globally humiliated him. Looked like it was her turn to become a web sensation.
She turned her head slowly, too frightened to force this moment. She would not cry or scream or run and scream and cry for her daddy. She would not! Mostly because he wasn’t cuffed and na**d this time and he would most definitely catch her. Still……
Before she could entertain any real escape plans he was kissing her. Tristan Black was kissing her! In public! Like he had every right in the world to do it no less. She moaned against his lips and nearly whimpered when he pulled away.
“Did you miss me, baby?”
“Er…”
“I just wanted to return these,” he said as he made a show of reaching into his pocket. Oh no, he wouldn’t do that would he….he did! He placed the silver handcuffs in the middle of table. It seemed like the entire bar went quiet except for the occasional gasp.
“Next time it’s my turn,” he said with a wink before he stood up and strolled out of the bar.
Her face burned as every pair of eyes moved between her and the cuffs. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.
Shit.
“You slut!” her three friends said in unison. It would have been funny if she wasn’t sure that was the new consensus in the bar.
*-*-*-*
“Oh, lad, ye really shouldn’t have done that to her,” Shayne said from the passenger seat of his truck.
Tristan kept his eyes locked on the front door of the bar as he drove away. If he knew Marty, and he was pretty sure that he knew her better than anyone else, she’d be storming out that door to kick his ass any minute now.
“Ye need to go back in there and apologize, maybe tell the people in there that ye were joking,” Shayne said.
“Not happening,” Tristan said distractedly.
“Lad, if ye don’t fix this I…I think whatever chances ye had with the lass will be good and buried. Are ye ready to finally be rid of her forever?”
He gave a casual shrug that he wasn’t feeling and said, “It’s going to happen sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now.” Before the words were out of his mouth, his stomach gave a violent twist at the idea of never seeing Marty again.
She aggravated him, pissed him off, got on his last nerve, but he’d be damned if she didn’t make him smile, laugh and made him glad to be alive. Without her, his life was going to amount to absolutely nothing.
He shifted in his seat as he pressed on the gas. “I need a drink.”
Chapter 14
“Tristan, I have to be honest. I’m a little surprised to see you here today,” Dr. Bryne said, picking up a pen and a legal pad. He watched as Tristan added a sugar packet to his coffee and pulled out a large apple fritter from a small white pastry bag. “Well, besides having breakfast in my office that is.”
“Didn’t we have an appointment?” Tristan asked as he took a bite out of his fritter, careful not to spill any of the apple filling on his tie or shirt.
“No.”
“Are you sure? I could have sworn that we had a meeting first thing this morning,” Tristan said in a thoughtful tone as he added another packet of sugar to his coffee.
Dr. Bryne narrowed his eyes on Tristan. “You know that we didn’t have a meeting. The fact that you told my eight o’clock appointment to sit down and shut up when he complained about you taking his time slot, because you said and I quote, ‘the voices in my head are taking over and it's every man for himself’ lets me know that you’re well aware that we didn’t have an appointment.”
Tristan’s lips twitched as Dr. Bryne continued to glare at him. “Oh, come on, Doc! You know that you’re happy to see me.”
“Tristan,” he sighed. “You’ve been skipping our appointments for the last couple of weeks even though it’s a condition for returning to work. Then out of the blue you storm in here and scare the hell out of all of my patients and secretary and you expect me to be happy about this?”
“Yes,” Tristan simply said. “So, what do you want to talk about, Doc?” Tristan asked as he sipped his coffee. He hoped this damn meeting went as planned. He needed it to go well.
“Well, since you’re here and all I guess we could talk about a certain video that made its way onto the internet this weekend,” Dr. Bryne said casually, too casually.
Tristan tried not to wince at the reminder of that video. “That was nothing.”
