“By anyone.”
“You were awful to me.”
He sighed, hating the hurt she tried to hide but just couldn’t. “Again, I’ll remind you that you were awful to me first.”
“I tried to be nice to you at first. You were a superior swine.”
“The first thing you asked was to see my architect’s drawings,” he huffed. “Like you had a right to them.”
“I felt I did.”
“Because you’re Bailey Hartwell, Princess of the Boardwalk. You’re not pissed at me for being a superior swine; you’re pissed at me for being the first person to say no to you.”
“Oh, believe me, you’re not the first man to say no to me.”
He tensed at the bitterness he heard in her voice. “I said person. Not man.”
“What?”
“Person, not man.”
Bailey shrugged. “Whatever. Let’s just agree I was a nosy bitch and you were a superior ass.”
“We’re using past tense?” he teased.
Their eyes met and he watched the way her lips trembled before they gave up and spread into a huge smile.
The constant ache inside his chest intensified as he felt the full force of that smile upon him. Its power flooded through him until he had to tense against the sudden urge to grab her and kiss her breathless.
Fuck.
What the hell was this woman doing to him?
Vaughn jerked his eyes toward the water, not needing the Princess of the Boardwalk to know she could undo him with her smile alone.
Bailey
Dear God, Vaughn Tremaine was just a man.
I didn’t know why that surprised me so, but it did.
For the past few years I’d had my defenses up around him, but the attack, the adrenaline from the attack had shattered all of those. Without them, I could see Vaughn clearly.
He was just a man.
With extremely high defenses.
His words could still sting but I could also see the regret in his eyes as soon as he said them. And when I smiled at him . . . I saw . . .
Well . . .
Vaughn looked at me like he wanted me.
I knew there was power in my smile but wow.
For the first time since meeting this man I felt that shift of power. Sitting beside him I no longer felt like the inferior country bumpkin I’d felt before. I felt like an attractive woman.
An attractive woman Vaughn didn’t want to be attracted to.