Holy fuck, that was creepy as hell.
In the next second, he decided he didn’t give a shit. “You read my mind.”
A smile ghosted over her glossed lips as she stepped forward to hand him the drink. “Not really. I saw you with your dad.”
“Oh.” He leaned his butt back against the front bumper of his Range Rover, lifted the glass, and downed half the contents in one gulp. As the whiskey burned down his throat, he blinked in surprise at what was left, then looked at her. “Black Maple Hill?”
“It’s what you drink, right?”
“Yeah.” But how did she know that? Was it more of the mind reading, or was she that observant?
“Observant.”
The single word answer to his silent question sent a shiver down his spine as she took a sip from the wine glass she’d been holding in her other hand.
Shockingly, he felt a smile tug at his mouth as he asked, “How many of those have you had?”
Her soft laugh in the cool night air gave him a shiver of a whole different kind. “This is my one and only. No more wine drunk for me.”
“I’m happy to take you home if you need me to.”
Her lips crooked up as she planted her butt on the bumper next to him. “I’ll be fine.”
She sat close enough for her shoulder to brush against his while she crossed her feet at the ankles. Thinking of her ass against the bumper, he longed to feel her bare cheeks in his palms again.
Tomorrow.
Or, if he played this right—tonight.
She shot him an indecipherable look and slid her delectable ass six inches away from him.
Loyal grinned to himself, and this time he took only a sip of his favorite drink. Let her read his mind. She was still out here, right?
Yes. And the crazy thing was, he hadn’t thought of his dad or Grayson or the foundation since she stepped through the door. And even though he just had, he didn’t want to punch anything.
In the middle of him marveling how less than two minutes with her had taken the edge off his anger when a couple weeks ago she would’ve triggered it, she asked, “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“It could help.”
“What are you, a psychic and a psychologist?”
She lifted her shoulders while taking another sip of wine. She didn’t say anything, but instead of her silence taking the pressure off, he felt compelled to speak. The mental mind voodoo tightened his shoulders while his fingers clenched his glass.
“My dad wants me to work with my half-brother.” Just saying the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Your mom mentioned starting a veteran’s foundation?”
“Yes. And my father—grand charitable bastard that he is—won’t give him the money if I don’t agree to be the CFO.”
The hell of it was, his dad was extremely generous, but in this case, for some reason, he was being bull-headed.
“And you don’t want to be CFO.”
“Hell no.”
“Is it that you don’t want the job?”