Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,9

hum of conversation. A kid shrieked as he ran by, his mother struggling to keep up.

But Landon didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were on me, all-seeing. Like he could look inside my head and read my thoughts, if only he was patient enough.

“Don’t ask,” I finally said.

“Ask what?”

“How I ended up here.”

He picked up a bottle of cranberry extract, pretending to study it. “It’s just that you were going to go to UW when I…”

“When you ran off without so much as a goodbye?”

He set the bottle down and looked at me, his expression soft for the first time since our little reunion. “Taryn-”

“I don’t want to know. It was three years ago, Landon. Anything you say now doesn’t matter.”

“I hurt you,” he said, simply. Like it was a fact, but one he didn’t understand. Maybe he didn’t even have feelings.

“What the hell did you think would happen? I fell asleep in your arms and woke up alone, and I never saw you again. What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I thought you didn’t want an explanation.”

“I don’t,” I said, standing up and fishing the key out of my pocket. “You know what? I don’t think I can do this. Take all your bottles and lock it when you’re done. You can find someone else to help you out.” I tossed the key at him, and it bounced off his chest. “And I’m billing you for the whole eight hours.”

The key clinked against the pin on his tie and then hit the floor, nearly drowned out by the stomping of my feet.

Chapter 4

“Taryn.”

I ignored him, ignored the almost apologetic tone to his voice. It didn’t suit him. He was too cocky and self-assured to be apologetic about anything he’d ever done.

“Taryn.”

It’s not until he touched me, when I was just a dozen feet shy of the door, that I stopped.

“Come on,” he said. “Don’t leave. I need you.”

“No you don’t,” I said, curling my lip up in disgust. At him or at the job I’d been doing for over a year, I’m not sure. “You could train a monkey to run that kiosk.”

He sighed, giving me a frustrated look. “Don’t quit.”

“Why not?”

He squeezed my shoulder, and I did my best to ignore his touch. Act unaffected. “I need someone I can train, and I know I can trust you.”

I laughed under my breath. “Too bad I can’t say the same for you.”

“Come on. I’ll double your wages.”

I blinked, hesitating. Hating that the difference between twelve bucks an hour and twenty-four was enough to stop me. “I want thirty an hour.”

He nodded without hesitation. “Okay. Let’s go for a drive.”

My eyes snapped to his, suspicion and excitement, stupid, wretched excitement, racing up my spine. I shouldn’t want to be in a car with him. “Why?”

“The new supplies for the kiosk were shipped to my place. You can help me unpack them.”

I didn’t know why I did it, but I followed him out the front doors of the mall, like spending all day alone with him wasn’t the most disastrous thing I could think of. We walked into the summer sun, and I blinked against the brightness. The air was hot and humid against my bare legs.

If Landon was hot beneath his pleated slacks and button-down, he didn’t show it. We crossed the parking lot, my flip-flops slapping against the concrete.

He rounded a black range rover, holding the door open.

I made no comment as I slid into the passenger seat, the leather like warm butter on my legs. He closed the door gently beside me and then rounded the car, hopping into the driver’s seat.

“You upgraded the Nova,” I said, thinking back to his blacked-out muscle car. I couldn’t think of the car without picturing all those times I’d tagged along with Landon and Matt, folded up into the tiny back seat as I secretly watched Landon, falling deeper in love with every shift and turn.

“Nah, I still have the Nova. You don’t upgrade American muscle. You just get another car so you can baby the first one.”

His smile was captivating, lighting his eyes in the way he used to look. In a way that reminded me of the years I spent following him around.

“I did fix the dent in the fender, though.”

I couldn’t help but burst out laughing as I remembered how the dent had gotten there. Landon’s car had been his pride and joy in high school, and after six months of begging him to let me drive it, he’d