CHAPTER EIGHT
CASEY
Given the current situation at home, I'd be a fool to pass up a free meal. When you're not sure where your next meal is coming from, free food is the one thing you'll never turn down. My stomach growled ferociously as we sat down at a corner booth, and I glanced up at Malcolm, afraid that he'd heard the rumbling.
If he'd had, he ignored it, which won him some points in my book.
The diner was your typical greasy spoon; worse than some in the city, better than others. Here was the thing about Hollywood – parts of it were super nice and fancy like Obelisk was. But, if you went over a few blocks, you’d find crappy diners, tenement buildings, hookers and junkies both looking for their next score, and homeless people begging for anything they could get.
The diner we were sitting in wasn't so bad, but Malcolm looked incredibly out of place there in his designer jeans, dark blue dress shirt and black dinner jacket. His sandy blonde hair was moist with sweat and clung to his naturally tanned face. He looked up from the menu and caught me staring, blue eyes sparkling in the bright fluorescent lights of the diner.
I'd slipped into the restroom before we sat down to clean up the blood on my hands, but my shirt was stained with it. Patrons looked at me as I tried to cover up the mess with my arms, but then quickly looked away, unimpressed. Obviously, seeing a woman covered in blood wasn't anything new or particularly exciting.
“Here, take this,” Malcolm said, slipping his jacket off and passing it to me.
“I can't. I'd get blood all over it,” I muttered. “I'll be fine.”
“I insist,” he said.
When I didn't take the jacket, he stood up and walked around, and stood behind me. I glanced up into his baby blue eyes as he slipped the jacket over my shoulders and felt a warm current of energy gently roll through me.
“It looks expensive,” I said.
“Listen, you look cold and I'm not about to let you freeze,” he said. “Not if I can do something about it. Besides, we need to hide the blood on your shirt, so people don't think we just came from a murder scene. We don't want the cops hauling us in tonight.”
He sat back down across from me and grinned. He could obviously see my hesitance to slip his jacket on completely, fearful I might ruin it, so he added.
“Don't even think about how much it costs, Casey,” he said. “It doesn't matter. I've got a bunch more at home, and I'm sure the dry cleaners can get a little blood out of the material.”
“Have experience with that, do you?”
I'd made a joke. It caught me by surprise too. Malcolm laughed, his full, luscious lips spreading in an adorably crooked smile.
Dammit, Casey. Do not use the words luscious and adorable when talking about some rich guy you never, ever stand a chance with, I mentally scolded myself. He's only taking you to get some food because he feels sorry for you. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Eat the food, laugh at his jokes, and go the hell home. “You're funny as well as beautiful,” he said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Not that I can recall,” I mumbled.
“Well, they should have,” he replied. “You deserve to hear that more often.”
My heart skipped a beat. He'd said I was beautiful. My cheeks flushed and burned with heat as I stared down at the menu, trying to appear deep in thought about what I was going to order, rather than on the verge of a massive stroke because he'd complimented me.
The waitress came over a second later, glasses of water in hand. She wrote down our orders and before long, it was just me and the millionaire again, all by our lonesome, in an otherwise empty diner. I couldn't help but think that's why Malcolm chose this place. It was somewhere no one would recognize him, since he was slumming it by hanging out with the likes of me. Years of my father's torment and abuses came rushing back to me like a horde of evil ghosts from the past. They riddled me with anxiety and self-loathing as I played with a straw wrapper, doing my best to keep myself composed.
“So, Casey,” he asked, breaking the silence between us, “may I ask what happened back there at the club?”
“Sure, you may ask, but I don't have to answer.”
Malcolm sighed, making me to glance up at him. He studied me closely, as if trying to solve an intricate puzzle. His eyes were soft and thoughtful though, and I couldn't stop staring. Unlike with Greg or Tommy, or the countless other men who'd come into the club, Malcolm didn't look at me like I was a piece of meat. He wasn't undressing me with his eyes, and clearly, wasn't imagining me in some lewd sexual fantasy. It was different and interesting.
“What?” I asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Looking at you how?”
“Like you're trying to read my mind.”
“Would you rather I stare at your cleavage?”
“It'd be more familiar, ” I said, rolling my eyes. “You hide it better, bu