“You lied to me,” she’d accused. And waited, practically tapping a foot in displeasure. The details of the bowling alley she’d dragged him to that night had faded away, but the fullness of her pouting mouth remained painfully easy to recall.
“You asked me if I liked to bowl, not if I knew how.” A hint of self-satisfaction had spilled into his tone and it’d bothered him. Knocking over a set of pins with a spinning projectile was a simple process of aiming for a “pocket,” the space between the front pin and the one angled behind it to the right. Not a difficult feat if you understood angles and velocity. So why had he puffed up with pride over this achievement?
Lil.
His realization that he wanted to impress her had been the most unsettling part of the evening. There had been far too much going on with Corisi Enterprises to waste time on what the little sister of Dominic’s latest fling thought of him. He’d scowled down at her, more in response to his own thoughts than to her words.
Money shaped how most people interacted with him, but it wasn’t something that he’d given much reflection to until he’d met Lil. Her displeasure with the reason for his visit had initially outweighed whatever most women found attractive about him. She hadn’t asked him to join her that night because she wanted to spend more time with him.
No, she’d taken him outside of what she’d considered his comfort zone with a less than noble goal, but she’d failed. “Disappointed that I don’t look ridiculous?” he’d asked.
She’d rested a hand on one jean clad hip, looking him up and down, smirking as she’d noted the clash between his Dayang suit and his colorful, rented bowling shoes; a perusal that had sent his blood rushing to places he thought he’d gained control of by his late teens. “Oh, you still do, don’t worry.”