Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,98

heart broken. You deserve better than anything he could ever give you.”

The line was silent for several seconds before she finally declared, “I’m happy with my life, thank you very much.”

My shoulders slumped ever so slightly. It wasn’t the first time we’d had that particular conversation, but it didn’t hurt any less. My mother was in pain and refused to do anything about it. I tried to be understanding, but it was just so damned frustrating. It was like beating a dead horse, then turning around and banging my head against a brick wall. Trying to make her see reason was pointless.

“If you say so,” I told her as the line shuffled again. “But it’s your loss. There’s probably a young guy named Marco on one of those islands just waiting for you to come and show him what it means to be a real man.”

“So scandalous,” she chided, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “If you’re really concerned with making me happy, you’d quit this nonsense and give me the grandbabies I’ve been dying for.”

I finally reached the front of the line, holding my phone to my chest and placing my order before moving to the side and lifting the receiver back to my ear.

“Hate to break it to you, Ma, but if you want grandbabies, you need to start annoying Dom about it. Odds are he’s got at least one illegitimate kid out there anyway. He is his father’s son, after all.”

Mom gasped loudly, the very definition of scandalized. She was probably clutching her pearls just then. “You watch your mouth, young lady!”

I ignored her chastisement. It had always been like that. As far as she was concerned, Dominic would always be her “perfect little boy,” philandering man-whore and all.

“As it stands, if some guy’s spunk manages to break through the condom I’ll definitely be making him wear and my birth control pills, we have some serious problems of the biblical variety.”

“Language, Lola!” my mother admonished at the same time someone let out a choked cough from behind me.

I chanced a quick glance over my shoulder, my face drawing in the “sorry, didn’t mean for you to hear me” look I seemed to have to paste on my face every time I was out in public. That filter most people were born with, you know, the one that kept them from spewing totally inappropriate things when in crowded places? Yeah, I so didn’t have that. And it wasn’t something that had ever embarrassed me. Maybe it was the Italian in me, but I’d always said exactly what was on my mind right when I thought it, eavesdroppers be damned. I mainly apologized because it was the politically correct thing to do.

The man who’d just heard me trying to convince my mom to get her groove back Stella style while shooting down her hope for future grandbabies all in the same conversation was standing two feet away, hands in his front pockets and a knowing smile stretched across his picture-worthy face.

“Sorry,” I mouthed as I did a quick scan of his body. In just those few moments, I was able to tell his suit was high quality, no doubt designer. And judging from the broad expanse of his shoulders, tailored to fit his body. And what a body it was. Slightly disheveled chocolate brown hair, amazing green eyes, a square, chiseled jaw, and a nose that was just crooked enough to make him appear rugged without going Owen Wilson overboard wrapped up the insanely hot package. The dude was most definitely spank bank material.

I’d made an art out of reading men over the past decade, and this guy, with his expensive suit and casual confidence, screamed money and power. Both of those attributes, while hot as hell, were something I stayed far, far away from when it came to the opposite sex.

I tended to go for middle-of-the-line good guys who didn’t take life too seriously. I found they were the easiest to scrape off whenever the sex became monotonous or I just got bored and wanted to move on. Men who wielded power in their professional lives had a tendency to think they could carry that over into the personal side—including the bedroom. And when it came to sex, I always had the power. I didn’t allow it any other way. Losing power only led to heartbreak, and despite what my career would lead people to believe, I was of the firm opinion that heartbreak was