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Wild guess, but he was pretty sure more was going on. Even so, he nodded gamely, looking at the stuff on the floor around him. His gaze zoned in on a string of condoms that advertised themselves to be glow-in-the-dark.
“Hmm,” he rumbled as he ran his finger along the strand. Trying to lighten the mood, he added, “Glow in the dark, eh?”
With a gasp, Hope bolted to her knees and snatched the condoms away from his hand.
“I’ll have you know.” Her voice took on a haughty edge as she crammed the condoms and everything else back into her purse. “I won those at a party.”
Her jerky movements and the blush blooming across her cheeks, told him she was royally pissed and probably a little embarrassed, too.
Mission accomplished. He’d done what he’d intended to do. He’d stopped her tears and interrupted her sadness. He should let it go at that. Let her go. If he valued his life even a little, he would have. But she looked so damned cute—with her pink cheeks and bright, indignant eyes—that he just couldn’t.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said with a hint of mocking. He was pushing it, and he knew it.
Sure enough, she stopped what she was doing and slowly looked up to meet his gaze. Her eyes darkened with a fury that screamedoh-no-you-didn’t,but he could tell her good breeding was keeping her from making an equally rude retort.
Instead, she huffed a disgusted breath as she scrambled to her feet and faced him toe to toe as he rose along with her.
Gabe was a full head taller than her, but her killer heels brought her almost to his eye level. Her eyes were blazing. Blessedly, empty of the sadness and vulnerability he’d seen earlier. She stared him down as good as any tough guy he’d ever had a throwdown with—and in his field of serving alcohol to those who often didn’t know their limits, he’d stared down plenty of tough guys.
He could tell she wanted him gone, but the thing was, she was still stuck, key-less. The ball was in his court, and by the look in her eyes, she hated that fact.
With her eyes flashing and cheeks blazing, Gabe thought again that Hope Morgan was the sexiest thing he’d seen in a long time.
Had he misjudged her? The woman in front of him clearly had grit. She stood her ground, arms crossed, silently glaring at him, daring him to call her sweetheart again.
Interesting. Maybe the privileged little rich girl could hold her own, after all.
A smile tugged Gabe’s mouth, an unfamiliar sensation these days. He reached into his pocket for the key ring that held the key to his apartment, the key to the bar, and the master key to the rest of the doors in the building—including Hope Morgan’s.
Her body tensed as she eyed the keys dangling in front of her. “Let me guess. Now I’m going to owe you a favor.”
She said it so deadpan that he couldn’t mistake it for the bad joke he’d hoped it was. What the fuck? What did she think? That he’d suggest they put those condoms to good use as a thank you? Christ, did he really come off like such an asshole?
“No. Jesus.” Gabe turned to the door as he found the right key. “Why would you owe me a favor for opening your damn door?” An unsettling thought entered his head. “What kind of assholes do you usually run with?”
At her silence, he gave her a sideways glance. She stood very still beside him, watching with great interest as he turned the key in the lock and opened her door. He pushed it open and stepped aside to give her plenty of room to enter.
As soon as she was inside, she spun to close the door, but before she slammed it in his face, as he was sure she would have liked to, she kept a crack open and said, so softly he almost didn’t catch it, “Thank you.”
Then she shut the door, leaving him standing alone, wondering what the hell just happened, and who the hell Hope Morgan really was. Because she sure as shit wasn’t who he’d thought she was.
CHAPTERTWO
He is not your type. Stay away from him, do you hear me? He is not your type.Hope tapped her forehead against her apartment door and repeated her mantra over and over, hoping that it would stick.
She’d been here for over four weeks and never met her landlord, but she’d known it was him—and not because no one else would have a reason to be on the apartment level of the building but him. The second she looked up and met his intense dark-green gaze, something had clicked inside her, and she’d justknown.
Not only that, but her heart had gone wild, and butterflies had erupted in her stomach as if she were a naive schoolgirl coming face to face with her first crush. Except Gabriel Walsh was nothing like the clean-cut quarterbacks she’d had the hots for in high school.
Her landlord was the opposite of clean-cut. He was handsome enough, with his tall, broad-shouldered body built like a football player. But the five o’clock shadow he sported gave a dark edge to the square cut of his jaw and added ruggedness to his other sinfully delicious facial features. His hair, a dark brown, was two missed haircuts too long, which should not have been sexy, but annoyingly was. Then there was the hint of a tattoo snaking up his bicep, the allure of which should have been criminal.
He was as far removed from the clean-cut, blonde Californian Ken dolls she’d become used to as a man could get.
As far as first impressions went, Hope had run the gamut from annoyed to pissed off to aroused in the span of five minutes. Which was not in any way okay because she had no business feeling attracted to someone who clearly viewed her as a disaster. And, if nothing else, Gabriel Walsh had made it clear he believed she was that at the very least.
It didn’t matter, she told herself, and besides, he was NOT her type. Not to mention the fact that she was on a dating moratorium, finding it safer to avoid men altogether. Until she had her life in order, she had no intentions of starting a relationship with anyone. Especially not a man like that.
“Ugh,” she groaned as she shoved away from the door and headed to the shower. “He needs a haircut.”
