The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Interesting. He’d half expected her to turn up her nose at a burger or ask for it to be free of all the things that made it great. Women lived on kale, as far as he could make out.

“I can’t resist a good burger and I can’t get a read on you, Jackson Haley. You smoke and drink and throw punches. You eat badly and dress well. You’re passionate about reporting, and you haven’t tried to come on to me, which, given the setup would almost be understandable.”

He signaled Kelly and ordered. He wouldn’t know how to come on to Honeywell. He should know. But he hadn’t had to worry about that kind of thing. It’d been on tap. Now it seemed like a terrible gap in his capability set. “And you surprised me, Honeywell. You lied to Madden.”

She shrugged. “You’re still here, and if you check your phone, Shona has emailed us both the first set of questions. I’d call that progress.”

“The paper is pimping us out and you’re comfortable with that?”

“We don’t have to become lifelong friends.” Her eyes went to her hands in her lap. “I get that’s not going to happen. All we have to do is meet a couple of times and record how the questions and answers makes us feel.”

He checked his phone. Goddamn lifestyle reporting. It was taking over the news business. “Chan is really away on a conference?”

“He really is. It’s in Hawaii. He’s taking vacation time.”

“Would you lie to me, Honeywell?”

She looked at him with a frown. He put his cell down to watch as she considered that. Those eyes were the palest blue on a color chart, right before you hit gray. They should make her seem icy. “I might if I thought it would help. If I thought you’d buy it. Getting you to do the story looks good for me.”

They stared at each other. Nothing cold about her, a smile that could start an adventure and a complete lack of posturing. “How am I supposed to trust you now you’ve admitted that?” But oddly, he did trust her, her answer was so damn honest.

“You don’t need to trust me. I can’t hurt you. Whatever this power play between you and Phil is about, it’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t think either of you care about me one way or another.”

She made him sound like a chump. “You’re making it difficult for me to dump you and this ridiculous story, Honeywell.”

“I am?”

“You know it.”

“Oh no I don’t. You’re all business and power to the people, Jackson Haley, and I’m all ‘look at Jesus’s face in a piece of toast’ and ‘here’s a python that ate a goat.’”

She said that so matter-of-factly he nearly choked on his laughter, shocking the Jesus toast out of Kelly, pulling a beer behind the bar.

“Swear to God, Haley, you’ve been coming to my bar for years and I’ve never seen you laugh like you meant it. Didn’t know you had it in you.” Kelly cocked a thumb at Honeywell. “Who is she?”

She was a woman who’d gotten in his goddamn way and was about to complicate it.

Chapter Five

Derelie had skipped yoga and the chance to see Yogaboy do his sinuous sun salute to prop up a bar with Jackson Haley. And he’d forgotten all about her. It was bad enough Ernest was forgetting her. Ernest wasn’t competent with a calendar. Maybe Jack wasn’t either. But then she’d almost taken out Jack’s manhood with her knees and his eyesight with her elbow, so perhaps that was the problem.

She’d liked how his eyes had gone wide and he’d grunted in surprise when her knees grazed his thighs, almost reaching for her and dropping his precious envelope. Another few inches higher, she’d have been able to verify if his balls were Texas-sized. They’d said sorry at the same time.

And then he’d stayed and suggested the best burger she’d eaten in years. It was a burger to make all future salads taste like grass clippings. She wondered if he’d notice if she undid the button at the back of her pencil skirt.

He was a man trained to notice things. But he was selective. And at the moment, he wasn’t being a bastard.

Not that she cared. Jackson Haley was a high-profile assignment not a potential assignation. She wanted Yogaboy to notice her. Over the months they’d shared the same class cycle she’d shuff

led her mat closer to his to give him a fair chance of catching her eyes. But he was so focused in his practice, he’d never once turned his man-bun her way; she’d only ever seen his tattoos sideways and upside down. It was a crime against hotness.

Jackson Haley’s notice, outside of what he could teach her about the newspaper business, was a little too unsettling to consider, although he did show traits of being human, and under the gruff stuff there was a sense of fun. She hadn’t had to think about him in burlap undies since the food arrived, but he’d just read the first question from the study, and his brows veed under his glasses, so feeling tentatively secure was probably a mistake.

“‘Given the choice of all people in the world, dead or alive, whom would you want as a dinner guest?’” He looked at her right on cue to see her lick mayo off her finger. “Goddamn ridiculous, pseudo-intellectual dinner party question.”

She licked another finger, because he was riled up and wasn’t paying any attention to her, which meant she could eat her fries and undo her button. She tried not to even sweat around Yogaboy, because according to her yoga instructor, sweat was her fat crying for release. So unattractive. But that whole “keep yourself nice in front of the boy you like” wasn’t a factor with Jack. He noticed her in the way he’d notice a roadblock before he drove over it.

“I can’t believe this is a university-designed study. A load of bullshit.”