Their Paid Girl

Their Paid Girl - Part 2

I narrowed my eyes. Oh, hell no. “Depends on what you want from her.”

For the first time that Adam and I had – well, not talked – I saw him smile and I finally understood the reason that so many girls were jumping off bridges for this guy.

“A date.”

                                                                                     ***

My first thought was, Scott, please marry me.

I was so ridiculously happy that I had a legit excuse not to go with him that I could’ve kissed Scott right there and then with a passion. My second thought would’ve required an extensive array of asterisks to write.

Then yet another option occured to me - to play stupid and ask him what the hell he was talking about, slap him soundly in the face for trying to pay me off to go out with him, pretending he’d gotten the wrong girl. But he had talked to Joel and possessed an incriminating photo. Playing dumb went out the window.

So instead I gave Adam what I hoped was a withering look. “No.”

He blinked at me. Clearly, he hadn’t heard that word very often.

“What?”

I conjured up the image of him shouldering past me roughly and mustered a glare. “Non.”

He frowned. “What’s with the weird accent?”

But I was enjoying saying no to the biggest jerk that marred the face of the earth. “Nyet. Nun. Ei. Ochi. Aniyo.”

He scowled and I scowled right back. All right, I tend to hold grudges. So sue me. In my opinion, the girls in love with him were monumental idiots for forgetting all the things that pushed them away from him in the first place.

“I’ll pay you,” were the next words out of his sexy mouth, and I looked down to see him holding two hundred-dollar bills.

I gaped.

“I can’t,” I hissed through my teeth. Most guys that dealt with me knew how sensitive I was about the money part. “I’ve already got a date I promised to go with.”

But Adam gave an infuriatingly superior smile as though regarding me as something less than intelligent. “The date I had in mind is a week from today. Think of it as me booking you in advance,” he had the nerve to wink.

I was outraged and I opened my mouth fully intending on letting him have it good, but he cut me off, looking irritated. “Look, the only reason I’m even talking to you is because Joel said you were professional. I’m willing to pay, why the hell are you turning me down?”

I snapped my jaw close, wishing the floor would open up precisely where he was standing so he’d fall through. I would wave cheerfully as he fell to his death; I hated him that much.

“The sheer size of your ego astounds me,” I told him bluntly and his dark slanted eyebrows pulled together even closer.

“You don’t have to like me; in fact, please don’t even talk to me unless completely necessary. That’s not why I’m hiring you,” he put emphasis on the last part, waving the bills in my face.

I snatched them away from him just so he’d stop waving them around, and then slapped him in the face with his own money.

“I’d rather argue with the Pope about God’s existence than even be here with you,” I told him icily, dropping the bills to the ground. He clenched his jaw, furious, and didn’t even bend down to pick them up. Shame, I would’ve enjoyed the view.