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“I need to relieve Nala. She can’t bartend to save her life.”
Hope’s eyes brightened. “I can!” she said, sounding very excited.
CHAPTERFOUR
“Excuse me?”
“I can bartend!” Hope ignored the look of amused disbelief on Gabe’s face. “I’m a great bartender. I tended all through college.” Hope paused, remembering that it wasn’t quiteallthrough college. Her thoughts darkened at the memory, but she pushed it back. She was good at pushing the bad stuff as far back as it would go. “Almost all through college. Anyway, the point is I was good at it.” Meeting Gabe’s increasingly speculative gaze with a determined pride, she added, “Verygood at it. Gabe, let me help you. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
She pressed her hands together prayer style, and offered Gabe a smile, which she hoped was both charming and convincing without coming across as desperate. She needed him to give her this chance. If she could prove to be an asset behind the bar, he might give her a job until she got herself on her feet.
“You bartended through college,” he repeated, sounding like he wasn’t buying it for one minute.
Hope nodded emphatically. “To help pay my tuition.” She crossed her arms indignantly at his raised eyebrows. “Not only was I good, but I could make Coyote Ugly look like the amateur hour.”
He snorted. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it’s so. Let me prove it to you. Half an hour,” she pleaded. “And if you don’t want me after that, I promise I’ll go.”
Gabe stood there, arms crossed over his broad chest, assessing her with amused eyes. She felt like he was looking right into her, trying to gauge her level of authenticity. She’d seen that look plenty of times over the years. People knew her father and thought that placed her firmly in thespoiled rich kidcategory. She knew that Gabe probably thought she was a privileged wealthy girl who never had to lift a finger in her life, and she was itching to prove him wrong.
If she could do this for him tonight, she could kill two birds with one stone. Get a jobandwipe the judgmental expression from his face.
Suddenly, proving him wrong meant more than anything. More than possibly landing a job, more than earning her share of this month’s rent, more than never having to mooch off her parents for another day in her life.
She was here to prove something to herself and her family. She came to Portland to start building her own identity and find her own way. And maybe, while she was at it, she could show everyone that she was more than just her family name. That she could exist without it.
Her spark for independence had been struck at her sixteenth birthday, and by the time she was accepted into the University of Southern California she had been set on paying her own way with the partial scholarships she’d secured and money from various part-time jobs for the rest. Her parents hadn’t fully understood it, but she had been adamant.
That’s how she ended up bartending for her three years at college. And she’d loved it. Loved making her own way and depending on herself.
Circumstances beyond her control had forced her to return home and give up the independence she’d gained, but if anything good had come out of that experience followed by the genetic-test kit she’d given her parents, it was that it had led her here. To a fresh start, where she could be anything and anyone she wanted.
And now that she was here, she refused to lose her chance again. To loseherselfagain. She had only gotten a taste of who she really was and who she could be. If she could only convince the broody man in front of her that she was worth this one small chance, then maybe the dream of getting back on track to building a life for herself wasn’t that far off after all.
Hands still pressed together, Hope hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until Gabe blew out his in a long stream of air, turned on his heel, and walked away from her, disappearing behind a door she assumed was his office. Probably to call in a more appropriate replacement for Carter.
Hope released a disappointed sigh and closed her eyes as she rode yet another wave of discouragement over yet another cool dismissal. She considered herself a positive person, but it was getting harder and harder when at every turn she came up against a wall of rejection. Was she really only worth something if she used her family connections? What would she be if she didn’t have her family name behind her? Oddly, having her adoption out in the open had made her think about this acutely. Who was she, if she wasn’t a Morgan?
A fraud. A nobody. The words whispered like the haunting echo of her worst fears.
The sting of tears behind her eyes snapped her out of her pity party. No way in hell was she going to cry twice in one day. Nor was she going to admit defeat. Not yet.
Gabe Walsh had no clue who she truly was. No idea what she was made of, or how hard she was willing to work to prove herself, and she wasn’t going to let him make up his mind about her based on misguided assumptions and judgements.
With a new determination, she strode to the closed door and lifted a hand to the knob, ready to walk right in and demand he give her a chance. Before she could turn the handle, the door flung open, and she stumbled across the threshold and into a brick wall inside.
Wait—not a brick wall, but Gabe’s very large and very hard chest. He caught her by one elbow and stepped forward, guiding her backward until he could close the door to his office tightly behind him.
When he didn’t immediately move to release her, Hope’s hands had no choice but to brace against his chest. For balance, she told herself. Taking in his gloriously chiseled, perfectly built strength, she tentatively ran her fingertips over his t-shirt, spreading her fingers across the planes of muscle. Muscles that she would have sworn quivered, then tensed under her touch.
He continued to keep her close, so she gave into the sheer pleasure of being this close to his powerful body, pressing her right hand against his hard left pec, feeling the strong beat of his heart beneath her palm.
Between them, heat sizzled, scorching her like a bolt of electricity that made her shudder. Did he feel it too? Because she was most definitely feeling parts of her that she hadn’t felt in a long time come to life and sing the hallelujah.
Somewhere in the distant recesses of her brain, her logical side tried to call a time out. She needed to pull away. This guy probably thought she was not only a daddy’s girl but a ditz. Nothing more than a blonde airhead. She should be running away from him, not feeling him up like some sex-starved hussy.
The other side of her brain, the side that reminded her that she hadn’t had a man touch her in years, told her to lean up and inhale the skin on his neck to see if he smelled as delicious as his coat had earlier.
