Rescuing the Bad Boy (Second Chance #2)(9)

She forced her dry throat to swallow, the overwhelming list of to-do items stacking one on top of the other in her mind. Too much… much too much to reschedule. Her breathing went shallow, her chest grew tight.

Shoot. Wait. No. She was a professional. This was her shop. The contract in her hand was legal. She double-and triple-checked after Gertrude passed away. Uncrossing her arms, she held out the paper for him again. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Again, he didn’t move.

She concentrated on breathing deeply and not having an anxiety attack.

“The dead woman who signed that agreement”—he dipped his chin at the paper in her hand—“left me the mansion in her will. And the new owner, me, will not be hosting a charity dinner.”

Had he really just referred to his late grandmother as “the dead woman”? Gertrude may not have been the most personable human being on the planet, but she’d earned more respect than he was giving her. She’d donated a lot of money to local charities in her remaining years, working tirelessly until her final fading breath. Who wouldn’t find her actions admirable?

Donny Pate. But of course.

Rather than lecture the man in front of her who’d long ago traded his heart in for a lump of coal, she asked him a question instead. “Do you care to know what charity this dinner is supporting?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Wow. Seriously. No heart.

She decided to tell him anyway. “Open Arms provides emergency shelter and foster care for abused children of all ages,” she said. “They’ve been in the Cove for twenty years this June, offering resources such as tutoring, nutritional education, and psychiatrists to kids who have nowhere else to turn.”

The speech poured from her lips, well rehearsed thanks to reciting it over the phone to businesses no fewer than a dozen times today. She was in the process of getting more sponsors for the charity, business owners willing to pay to put logos on table tents or donate gifts for the silent auction.

Using his words against him, she rattled the paper in her hand. “The dead woman who signed this contract was committed to supporting Open Arms. She left a great deal of money to them—I’m guessing the rest to you—and left me in charge of overseeing this event. There will be no venue change. Not when this dinner has the potential to fund their program for years to come.”

There. Try to turn down a charity for abused children.

His face went hard, his lips pressing together in a flat, unimpressed line. When he spoke, his words were a pick dug into a wall of ice, each syllable a sliver chipping through his clamped teeth.

“When you put it that way,” he bit out, “definitely no.”

She forced herself to breathe and looked around for something peaceful to focus on. Instead, her gaze settled on the most beautiful thing in the room.

Him.

If going for his heartstrings didn’t work, she’d have to use good, old-fashioned reason. “Listen, Donny—”

“Donovan.”

She felt her eyebrows pull. “Excuse me?”

“Donovan. Not Donny.”

Okay, she was absolutely over his attitude. “If you can call me Scampi, I can call you Donny.”

He shook his head slowly, the left and right motion intentional. “You took the dare. You lost. Scampi.” He smiled. Actually smiled. It was a small crook of his lips, but it made him look a little sinister and a whole lot delicious. Her heart pounded harder, and this time her anxiety had nothing to do with the seven thousand things she had to look after for the charity dinner.

“Scott Torsett,” he stated.

The lawyer down the street. She’d planned his company Christmas party last year. Wild bunch, those lawyers. Thrown, she replied, “What about him?”

“You and I are going to his office tomorrow morning to get the contract voided.”

Voided?

“You still drink coffee?”

Not following his line of thinking, she shook her head.

“Tea?”

She replayed the conversation bouncing around in her cluttered head. “I drink coffee. I mean… I don’t want you to bring me coffee.”

Hang on. This was not the point. Holding the contract in both hands, she tried again.

“Donny—er, Donovan—”

He stepped a few inches closer, his smile slipping. She looked into his crystalline eyes and promptly lost her train of thought.

Geez. He’d been back in town five minutes and she was completely frazzled.

He took the contract, folded and stuck it into his pocket, then gripped her upper arms firmly, but gently. This close to him, she had to lift her chin to take in his full height. Heat rolled off his body, the rough texture of his palms skimming along the thin sleeves of the shirt she wore.

The last time she’d been this close to him, he was kissing her. Touching her. And, dammit, her entire body reacted as if he was doing that now. A full-body tingle radiated from her chest to her limbs. His lips flinched like he noticed.

But she wasn’t the na?ve girl she was back then, was she? No longer was she the girl hell-bent on losing her virginity to the baddest boy in town.

In short, she was no longer stupid.

“Coffee,” he repeated. “See you in the morning.”

He started to let her go, but she kept him captive with one word. “No.”