Close Cover (Masters and Mercenaries #16)(66)

She wasn’t going to let him make her go all gooey again. “Well, I’m smiling now because funnel cakes make me smile. But I’m an adult so I’ll have a corn dog first. Aren’t you hungry? You barely ate any lunch.”

They’d stopped at a sandwich place, but she’d told him she wouldn’t eat with him unless they stayed in the truck.

She’d been kind of a bitch. Did she really want to spend the next few weeks being a bitch? Did she want the end of her time with him to be filled with confrontation? Not that he’d been confrontational. He’d been…sad.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “But I’ll try to smile more if it makes you happy.”

“Don’t.” She looked away from him. “Don’t try to make me happy, Remy.”

“Okay.”

Damn it. He was looking away from her, his eyes a little empty.

Why couldn’t she be one of those cool chicks who once she was through with a man, she never thought about him again? Or the kind who could make it easy on herself and just off him? She bet Charlotte Taggart was a woman who could deal with an ex. But no. Lisa Daley was all soft in the middle. Lisa Daley lasted exactly two days before she started to worry about her enemy’s tender feelings. She needed to harden up, get some of those shields everyone else had, build walls so tall…

“Cotton candy.” Her mouth kind of watered.

Remy stared down at her and his eyes suddenly got steely. “You can’t make me not try to make you happy.”

What? Sometimes that Cajun accent could be hard to follow.

He turned on his heels and walked straight up to the cotton candy stand. The girl in the stand kind of giggled and jumped up and down and then passed him a big cone of frothy pink sugar.

He strode back over like a man on a mission. Gosh, he was big. Big and beautiful and so sexy it hurt her pussy to think she was never going to sleep with him again. It was an actual ache, like her girl parts were rebelling against her very reasonable plans to never let him touch her again. Not with those big hands. Those big, callused manly hands. Nope.

“Cotton candy.” He offered it to her like he was offering something precious.

It was. It was cotton candy. She should go and get her own. Be strong and brave and he had sad puppy eyes. Gorgeous sad puppy eyes.

It was only cotton candy. When had a big old poof of sweet, sweet cotton candy ever hurt a girl? Well, there was diabetes, but she wasn’t thinking about that tonight. She took the cotton candy. “Thank you, Remy.”

Those lips curled up in the most brilliant smile. Yep, her girl parts were singing again. And her heart rate had ticked up. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t staying. When everything was cool at home, she would go back and never think about Remy Guidry again.

Often. She wouldn’t think about him very often. Probably.

“I was supposed to eat something adult first.” Not that it stopped her from taking a big old bite. And then wondering what it would be like to share cotton candy with the asshole lying liar with the great abs and soulful eyes. She could take her bite and then share it with him by kissing him long and deep, their tongues mingling. Sweet kisses. They would walk around the fair hand in hand and share those kisses.

“Well, I have to do something about that. I can’t have you on a sugar high. Let’s see. Have you ever had a shrimp po’ boy?” Remy asked. “Because if you have, I’m going to tell you that you haven’t because you’ve never had one from here. The shrimp were caught today.” He held out a hand. “Come on. I won’t try to make you happy. I promise. I’ll simply walk you around and introduce you to the weirdest people you’ve ever met and get you food at every single stand so you don’t miss a thing. And then, I’ll dance with you. Not to make you happy, but because it’s expected at a party like this. There won’t be any joy in it. It’s merely something we’re expected to do. It would be impolite to not dance.”

She glanced over at the dance floor that had been set up in the middle of the square. Twinkle lights had just lit up making the whole place gauzy and romantic. She couldn’t dance with him. That would be such a bad idea.

But then again, she was the new girl in town and she should probably be polite.

“Remy, my man!” Some dude strode up and passed him a bottle. “De la cave de mon grand-père pour toi, mon frère. S’il te pla?t profites-en.” The young man winked her way. “Et ta nouvelle femme est magnifique.”

Remy took the bottle. “Merci, Rene. Mais elle est à moi. Ne pense pas à faire plus que la regarder. Lisa, this is Rene Darois.”

Rene was a stunning man roughly the same age as Remy. He had reddish gold hair and a matinee idol smile. Unlike most of the men around him who favored jeans and T-shirts, Rene was in a full suit. His green eyes seemed to twinkle as he winked at her. “Bonjour, Lisa. I look forward to learning more about you. I’m interested in any woman who can take on our Remy. He’s been a bear since the divorce.”

Remy frowned Rene’s way. “Ne commence pas là-dessus. Moins elle sait, et plus mes chances sont bonnes.”

She had no idea what he was saying but the man nodded her way and walked off after shaking Remy’s hand. She did know that he was ridiculously sexy when he was speaking French. Like swoon worthy. She stuffed sugar in her face because what she wanted to do was jump on the hot Acadian dude.