“You did with me.” He pointed out the fact that they’d met at a party her company, the Party Crashers, had been hired to crash over a month ago.
“That was the only time that happened.” She lifted her head and glared at him. “Is that what this is all about? You don’t trust me?”
A muscle ticked in Cooper’s square, stubbled jaw, and his face hardened to stone. That was all the answer she needed.
“You don’t trust me,” she stated, no longer asking a question. Something died inside her, like a little shoot pushing up through the earth only to be frozen by unseasonably cold spring weather.
Again, nothing but a stone-faced response.
“Cooper Black, how dare you?” She jabbed her finger in his chest again, so hard this time that he winced and backed up a few steps. Good, she hoped she drew blood. She jabbed him again, not caring if she broke a fingernail.
“Well, we almost did it at a party you were paid to crash.”
Now that really pissed her off. “But we didn’t. In fact we haven’t done it yet.”
“Not for my lack of trying,” he muttered.
“What are you insinuating?” Izzy’s blood boiled. She’d refused to sleep with Cooper, even though they’d done everything but. Something held her back, and she guessed that something had to do with trust issues from both sides and his controlling He-Man ways.
For a moment, uncertainty flashed across his ruggedly handsome face, as if he’d stepped in a pile and had no idea how to clean it off his shoes.
Sensing his momentary retreat, Izzy advanced on him, both guns blazing, along with her temper. “You think just because I’m not putting out to you, I must be putting out to someone else?”
His silence said it all.
“I thought we had something special. Obviously we don’t. You are a Neanderthalic brute of epic proportions. Get out of here and let me do my job.” She vibrated with fury. How dare this man ever think that. Just because she dressed the part at these parties she crashed didn’t mean she put out to any and every man she met. Or even any man she met. In fact, it’d been so long since she’d put out, she’d probably regained her virginity.
Obviously, Cooper couldn’t let that one go. She could see him battling with some inner demon, and the demon won. She could tell by the gleam in his eyes. “You’re an uptight prude with delusions of getting your hooks into a wealthy hockey star.”
Oh, now that stung. Really stung.
She reared back, standing straighter, and fisted her hands at her sides. Those were fighting words, and she hadn’t survived—even thrived—years of neglect by absentee parents to tolerate that bullshit. “Fuck you.” It wasn’t exactly classy or eloquent, but those simple words did the job.
Being a proud man, she knew Cooper wouldn’t take her dismissal lightly. “If I leave now, we’re done.”
“We are done.” She pointed toward the bank of elevators, noticing for the first time that all three of her sisters stood several feet away gaping at the two of them. She ignored the girls. They’d talk later.
Something flashed in Cooper’s eyes, gone as quickly as it came. Sadness? Remorse? Or relief. Hell if she knew.
“Good. I was just about done with your bossiness anyway.” Giving her his broad back, he strode to the elevator. A few seconds later he was gone.
“Get back to the party,” she ordered her sisters, playing the big sister role to the hilt. The twins gratefully escaped, but Betheni hung back.
“Izzy, are you okay?”
“I’m fine; leave me alone for a few, please.”
Betheni hesitated then left for the ballroom. Izzy slumped onto the couch, trying to gather her wits about her. She had a job to do. Later she’d make sense of what just happened. Digging in her purse, she found some lipstick and reapplied it, fluffed her brunette hair, and stood.
Returning to the ballroom, she behaved as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Inside, her heart splintered into so many pieces she’d never put it back together.
You are a Neanderthalic brute of epic proportions.
Cooper stood on his back porch, staring out at the water and the Olympic Mountains rising in the distance as the sun rose behind him. Already it was sixty degrees outside and pretty warm for an August morning in Seattle.
He buried his fingers in his tangled hair and leaned his elbows on the railing, rerunning the events of last Saturday night over and over in his mind for the millionth time.
Was Neanderthalic even a word? He’d failed at spelling but even he didn’t think it was a real word.
But hell, that woman could chew ass.
Now the epic proportions part he liked, and it fit. Not that they’d ever gotten far enough that she’d sampled those proportions, except with her mouth.
Oh, fuck. He groaned at the thought.
He liked the brute tag, too. He was a bad-ass hockey player after all and being a brute went with the territory. Yet she’d wielded that particular sword to cut him deeply, not stroke his ego.
And he was bleeding all right, and not just his supposedly fragile male ego.
What he didn’t like was being dressed down in front of her sisters, as their mouths hung open in shock while she ripped him new ones in places he didn’t think would rip.
They had.
To shreds.
And he’d done the only thing a stubborn, pride-filled brute would do. He lashed out like a wounded animal, called her an uptight prude with delusions of getting her hooks into a wealthy hockey star. Oh, crap, then all hell broke loose, and he retreated like a soldier knowing when the odds were against him. He’d regretted the words the minute he’d said them, but pride wouldn’t let him take them back, and he doubted Izzy would either.