“Scuse me, ma’am, I noticed your meter’s run out. I figured you were moving, so I wouldn’t have to write you a ticket.”
The guy’s breath was rancid. It smelled like onions and stale coffee and Ambi’s stomach lurched. The meter dude, a middle-aged guy with beady, sharp eyes and oily hair protruding from beneath his ball cap, ran his tongue along his bottom lip like he’d relish writing her a ticket for the least infraction. She resisted the urge to snap all over the guy’s ass. You win more flies with honey than with vinegar, but at the moment she just wanted to get the hell out of there.
“I’m sorry. Yes. I’m moving. Right now.” She moved her hand to the keys dangling from the ignition and was ready to turn it when a deeper, smoother voice, overrode any good sense she had left. Her hand fell away.
“She’s actually staying parked there for a few more minutes. Here. This should cover it.”
Trey. Effing Trey Hartman. Her worst nightmare. God. He deserved a double steaming poo pile for this.
Ambi turned her head just enough that it looked like she was still looking forward, but she could see Trey peel off a bill with a large number in the corner and hand it over to the parking creep. She could have sworn her meter wasn’t out of time at all. She’d planned for a much longer meeting in H&H.
The guy, creep number two of the day after Trey himself, pocketed what was probably a hundred-dollar bill, flashed a crooked smile at Trey and sauntered off whistling. Ambi’s stomach lurched again.
Trey leaned into her open window and she wasn’t fast enough to crank it back up. “Your meter still has half an hour left on it.” He purred in his liquid velvet voice. “Looks like I just saved you from- well- who knows.”
“What the fuck?” Ambi shoved her door open so hard that it bumped against Trey’s shins. He didn’t back up on time and winced, shifting from foot to foot. She stayed seated in the car, clutching the door. “That guy was just doing a bit of disgusting flirting or something. He was likely just checking to see if I was alright, seeing as I was going a little apeshit on my steering wheel.” She swallowed hard. She shouldn’t have admitted that. “He was not going to molest me. The door was locked anyway, shithead. You, on the other hand, stalked me, creeped me, and then made it pretty obvious you had some molesting of your own in mind.”
Trey sighed so hard it sounded like it hurt. “Look, Ambi…” he raked a hand through his gorgeous mahogany hair. It was always just a tad past needing a haircut. Not shaggy. No, it was sexy. The kind of hair every woman dreams of running her fingers through.
The rest of him was insanely gorgeous too. Unfortunately, Trey didn’t just inherit a ton of money from his parents. He’d got the best of their DNA too. It was beyond her how two mortals could make someone who looked like a god.
He knew it though, so it kind of spoiled his bronzed skin, sharp cheekbones, angled jaw, perfect nose, and lips. He was well over six feet and jacked, naturally athletic and rich enough to make up for anything he lacked with personal trainers and someone to cook all his meals for him. He made that two-thousand-dollar suit look good. It looked really good. Again, all that deliciousness was basically like the package she wanted to send him. Shit wrapped in a pretty box with a shiny bow. Gorgeous and flawless on the outside. Stinking and nasty on the inside.
“Don’t use my name,” she barked. “We are not on a first name or even a last name basis and we never will be again. As far as I’m concerned, we have no history. The only thing you taught me was not to trust assholes, and I learned my lesson well, so yeah. We’re done here.”
Unfortunately, Trey parked one of his massive legs in front of her car door so that when she tried to shut it, she couldn’t budge it. He was too close, and she had to let her hand fall away or she’d risk grazing his leg and that was not going to happen.
“I was serious when I said I’d double the price. I know you have something you could do with that money. I’ll even throw in a trip somewhere nice as a bonus.”
“You can’t buy me! You had me once, Trey. You had me. Body, heart, soul, everything else. Everything I was and would be. You traded me away for your bank account, a nice house and some cars, so no. You won’t buy me with that money.”
Trey didn’t budge. Worse, he leaned down so that they were level. She had to meet his gaze or risk admitting defeat by letting him know what his proximity was doing to her. It was throwing her into the worse internal disarray. Her insides cramped into a jumbled mess. Her hands were so clammy she was amazed they didn’t slip off the wheel. Her heart pounded into a mess all over the place.