The Girl Next Door - Emma Hart Page 0,13
see each other all the time. It’s like those dumb reality shows—how people on things like Big Brother go from strangers to being in love in two weeks.”
“You know that’s all for ratings, right?”
“Of course, but the point is still valid.”
I groaned. “Okay, fine. How did you propose?”
“Over pizza?”
“Really? The only proposal I’ve ever gotten is fake and over pizza?”
“Nobody has ever proposed to you?”
“Has someone proposed to you?”
“Like three times.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Have you ever said yes?”
“That’s a trick question.”
“It’s really not.”
“I’ve never said yes.” He grinned. “Besides, one doesn’t count.”
“How does a proposal not count?”
“It was my cousin.”
“Your cousin proposed to you?”
“Yeah, but she was drunk and thought I was someone else, so it was totally reasonable.”
“What about the other two?”
“Does it matter?”
“As your fake future wife, it absolutely matters. I demand to know your relationship history before I push your watermelon-headed spawn out of my vagina.”
He paused, rubbing his chin. “That’s as a good an argument as I’m gonna hear, I reckon.”
“You reckon,” I drawled.
“Yeah, I do.” He grinned, stroking his thumb across the back of my head.
I hated that I liked it.
Really, really hated it. Especially because it sent goosebumps up my forearm, and the last time I’d felt things for this man, I’d gotten pregnant.
I suppose it was a good thing that history couldn’t repeat itself right now.
“All right. The first proposal was when I was nineteen. We’d dated for six months and she was taking it far more seriously than I was. I broke up with her right after.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, but it was that or lead her on,” Kai mused. “It seemed kinder to be honest with her.”
Ugh. I hated it when asshole moves had totally real reasons behind them. How could you be mad at that?
Cruel to be kind and all that.
“The second one?”
“Ah, that one was a little trickier.” He paused. “We’d been going out a little over a year in my senior year of college.”
“You went to college? And you’re a builder?”
“I don’t like ties, offices, or business hierarchies,” he said dryly. “May I continue?”
I waved for him to carry on.
“We were about to graduate, and she wanted to move with me back here, but I didn’t want to commit to anything so serious. She asked me to marry her, and I said no. She…wasn’t happy about it.”
I couldn’t imagine why.
“Well, aren’t you just a regular modern-day Casanova.”
“Not really. I paid her credit card bill off as an apology.”
“Oh, my God. Is there anything wrong with you?”
He raised his eyebrow as if to say, You’ll have to find out.
I wasn’t going to push it. I had enough on my plate.
“Okay, well,” I said, moving on. “Now I’m caught up and we’ve set the record straight, you just have to deal with my parents.”
“And later your grandmother.”
“And later my grandmother,” I confirmed. “Hopefully much, much later. Like when she’s dead.”
“She can’t be that bad.”
“Is your grandmother the woman being wrestled away from the bar right now?” Anna asked, shuffling back to the table. “Because a man who looks a bit like you is begging her to go to the office and nobody is batting an eyelid.”
I turned around and sure as shit, my grandmother was being accosted out of the bar by my father, leaving my mother apologizing profusely to the customers in the immediate area. For what it was worth, none of them were bothered in the slightest. They were all regulars and therefore, they were used to my grandmother’s scenes.
“Well, at least she didn’t come dressed in a feather boa this time,” I mused.
“What?” Anna asked.
“It’s a long story,” I replied, standing up. “I need to get back to work. What can I get you to eat?”
***
Two hours later, Grandma Rosie was safely back at home courtesy of one of our kitchen staff who had finished his shift, and the bar was resembling something that wasn’t a mosh pit. It was the lull between the dinner rush and the evening rush, and it meant we could all breathe for the next hour.
Thank God.
Kai, bless him, had stayed the entire time, even when Anna had taken his keys and said she’d pick him up later because she was bored. He was sitting at the bar with a glass of Pepsi even though I’d told him a thousand times I didn’t care if he had beer.
“I have to work tomorrow anyway,” he insisted, catching a droplet of condensation on the side of his glass with his thumb. “Besides, you’ve been staring at