Hard Love (Trophy Boyfriends 3)

Actually—a gold digger does. Someone with no interest in the man as a person, only in their wallet, and I’ve met plenty of women who don’t give a shit about me as a human.

I step closer, propping my foot on her bottom stoop. “First of all, stop saying you tossed me on my ass.”

She snorts. “That was your takeaway from all that? The one thing you got out of my long rant was the ass-tossing part? Jesus.”

“It’s really unattractive when you roll your eyes like that.”

Her chin goes up. “I do not care what you think.”

“Don’t.”

She pulls a face. “Don’t what?”

“It sounds better saying ‘I don’t care’ then it does saying ‘I do not care.’ For the ease of the sentence.”

“I’m so glad I tossed you on your ass.” Chandler is defiant, crossing her arms, hands paused in turning the deadbolt key. “Tossed. Ass.”

She needs to stop driving home the same point over and over.

I put my hands on my hips. “You did not.”

“Oh yeah? Then how did you end up on the ground?” Her foot taps, the sound of her heel making a little click, click, click sound.

“I don’t remember—I blacked out.” I hesitate to say the next words. “It’s not like you could do it again if you wanted to.”

Her cool gaze rakes me from head to toe. “The hell I couldn’t.”

A drop of rain hits my cheek and I glance up at the sky then over at the streetlamps to see a fine mist glistening below the lights.

Is my mind playing tricks on me or is it starting to rain?

I look back up at Chandler, who’s advancing toward me slowly, taking one step at a time, toward my spot at the bottom of her staircase.

“Is that a challenge?”

I exhale. Fuck if she isn’t sexy as hell when she’s all riled up and wanting to wrestle my ass.

“Probably.”

Probably. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She’s down at the bottom of the steps now, so we’re eye to eye. If I leaned forward far enough, our noses would touch.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I tossed you twice.”

“You…” I say, not finishing the sentence because I have no idea what to say. I really am the idiot my brother is always telling me I am. Why don’t I listen to him more?

“Me what?”

“You…wouldn’t dare.”

“You don’t know what I would or wouldn’t dare.” Her snicker is quite adorable. “You don’t know anything about me.”

She’s right; I don’t know anything about her. Everything I thought I knew about her from talking to her cousin before the wedding and bachelor party and rehearsal and reception was that Chandler Westbrooke was raised conservatively. Went to private school. Never broke rules.

Quiet.

Sweet.

Studious and smart.

But then she went and dropped me on my ass and left me confused as fuck.

Now she’s standing here, definitely wanting to karate-chop me into oblivion, onto the hard, cold ground.

Again.

Never judge a book by its cover.

People aren’t always what they seem.

“Do it,” I goad—as if I’m on the fifty-yard line at the beginning of a football game, talking shit to an opposing player during the ball snap. “Come on.” I lower my voice. “Do it.”

She steps off the stoop and onto the sidewalk next to me.

We have a stare-down, despite our size difference, her eyes appearing shifty and—

“Jesus Christ!” I shriek when my feet leave the ground, more wits about me than the last time she had a grip on my body, black shirt suddenly soaking on the cool pavement. “What the fuck, Chandler!”

I’m out of breath and the wind is knocked out of me, but this time, she’s bent over me, hair hanging in a cascade alongside her face.

Her smirking, grinning face.

…I think.

It’s hard to tell from this angle.

“You dick,” I say, winded. “Warn a guy first.”

Her hands go to her knees. “What would be the fun in that?”

“You’re only five feet tall—how are you doing this?”

She’s not really five feet tall. I’m just being dramatic.

“My sensei was one of the best.” She does a petite bow, pressing her hands together in a prayer-like pose. Leans in closer. “Are you okay?”

“Other than the fact that it’s raining? Yes, I’m fine.”

She’s bruised my ego enough to last me a lifetime—or put me in the hospital. Diagnosis: butthurt feelings and butthurt ass.

“Most people don’t get hurt from being flipped—it’s all in your head, and besides, you’ve been hit harder by grown men than little old me.”

Sure, she might be small, but she’s mighty, hair beginning to glisten from the mist lightly falling down on us.

Angelic.

Her black silky shirt is starting to cling to her body the way silk tends to do when wet, her boobs falling forward in her bra from the position she’s standing in.

Shit.

The fall must have addled my brain because I find myself watching her lips move when she leans in closer instead of listening to her speak—but maybe she’s doing the same thing too because I swear to god her eyes are trained on the lower half of my face.