The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(18)

“Semantics.” I grinned and sat back in my chair, swinging it side to side gently. “What was I right about?”

He grimaced, swallowing. “Ruby.”

Imagine that.

“This is my shocked face.” I drew a circle around my face with my fingertip.

I was still grinning. Smugly. Oh boy, was I smug.

“If you’re just gonna gloat at me—” Dom pushed off the wall and held up his hands.

“I’m not, I’m not!” Which was easier said than done considering I was trying not to laugh at his expense.

What? I liked being right. Especially when he was the one who was wrong.

He glared at me for a moment.

“What happened?” I asked, picking up my cup to sip again.

Dom opened his mouth, then paused. “Are you drinking?”

“I had a bad meeting. Don’t judge me.” I put the sangria down. “Don’t worry. It’s just a small one.”

“No judging. I had three shots of vodka after Ruby left.”

Wow. And he didn’t even drink vodka.

“That bad, huh?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I wrote off her behavior in our first meeting as her just being a flirty person. I mean, look at her.”

“She looked like she charged a hundred bucks for a blowjob, Dom.”

“Aren’t you, as a woman, not supposed to judge other women?”

“When did I say I was judging her? Hell, if I could get away with charging a hundred bucks for a blowie, I’d take that up in a heartbeat.”

“There’s this thing called the internet where you can advertise those services, you know.”

I gave him a flat stare. “What happened at your lunch “meeting?””

“It was a meeting!” He rubbed his hand down his mouth. “It was supposed to be a meeting.” He leaned back against the wall again with a sigh. “So, we sat down at our table, got coffee, ordered food, and started talking. I took a folder with a few profile print-outs, so she could narrow down and put me on the right track because she said she was quite fussy.”

“Not that fussy if she hit on you.” Says me.

He flipped me the bird before carrying on. “She narrowed it down to two guys were who pretty similar by the time we were almost done eating, so I was ready to go. We paid, then when we were on the sidewalk, she turned to me and told me she thought I was better looking than those guys I’d given her and kissed me.”

“You kissed her?” My eyebrows shot up, even as there was a slightly jealous twang in my chest.

“No. I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me,” he corrected me. “There’s a difference.”

“Sure, there is. But did you kiss her back?”

“No!” He balked at my question. “Jesus, Chlo—no, I didn’t kiss her back. I pushed her off me and asked her what the hell she was doing.”

“She was trying to get into your pants,” I pointed out a little too cheerfully. “Like I told you she was.”

“I know that now, don’t I?”

Laughing, I picked up my cup. “How did you not know that from your first meeting with her? She was all over you. If you were a boat, she’d be a plague-filled rat.”

“It looked…different…from my perspective.”

“Because you could see down her shirt,” I pointed out. “Of course, it was different.”

Dom scratched the back of his neck, briefly dropping his eyes to the ground. “Well, yeah. Come on—I’m a guy. Do you think I don’t stare at you when you’re bending over with a low-cut shirt?”

I blinked at him. “You—you stare at me?”

“When you’re bending over with a low-cut shirt,” he repeated quickly. “And you happen to be in my line of view. I don’t make it a fucking hobby.”

Ouch. A simple “yes” or “no” would have sufficed. Hell, even the first half of his answer would have done just fine.

“Whatever,” I muttered. “Still, I told you so. She isn’t interested in any of the services our company can provide. She’s interested in Peyton’s.”

“Which, thank God, I never signed up for,” Dom added.

“What?”

“She tried to get me to be a test subject, but I think I was seeing someone at the time.” He shrugged a shoulder. “No big deal.”

Right. No big deal.

“Anyway, if you see Ruby in here or she calls, and you answer, tell her I terminated our agreement.” Dom stuffed his hands in his pockets.

I scoffed. “Tell her yourself. I’m not your secretary, no matter that she thought.”

“You’re right.” He shrugged once again. “I couldn’t have a secretary who looked like you. Or I’d have to make her dress in sweats.”

“Dom? Your vodka shots are showing. Shut up.”

He grinned. “Anyway. I’m just here to say you’re right, and in future, I’ll listen to you.”

“Now, I know your vodka shots are showing. Go take a nap upstairs or something.”

“That’s not a bad idea. Can you call me in an hour to wake me up?”

“Okay, if I’m not your secretary, I’m sure as hell not your keeper. You have an alarm clock on your phone for a reason.”