Garret Williams, her MIA date, was a former rugby player from Australia. He’d recently begun a project with one of Heather’s subsidiaries.
Heather O’Keith was an accidental friend—more about that later—and had been pestering Kay about setting up this date for months.
Garret was tall.
Garret was built.
Garret had the most gorgeous chocolate eyes Heather had ever seen.
Kay’s own eyes flicked back to the man, who was now yanking open the door. Check. Check. Check.
“—You know I didn’t even want to do this in the first place.”
She’d been expecting an Australian accent, considering he was from Australia, but he sounded American. Well, chalk it up to things she would never know.
The door shut, cutting off anything else he might have said, and leaving Kay alone on the sidewalk, purse’s contents strewn in all directions, and temper rapidly rising.
“Stupid”—she grabbed her book, shoved it back into her bag—“men.”
Then Kay snatched up her keys, wallet, lipstick, pack of gum, two hair ties, and a few bobby pins and tucked them into her purse, all while muttering under her breath about the irritating creatures of the opposite sex who were hot but didn’t appear to give a damn about anyone but themselves.
What the fuck had Heather been thinking?
You know what?
What had she been thinking?
Letting that asshole crash into her with nary an apology, allowing him to leave her to crawl across the dirty sidewalk gathering up her personal items. She hadn’t even managed to say anything useful, just been blinded by his gorgeous god-likeness and had let him traipse off like a big ole’—
Ugh.
Like a big ole’ something that was really insulting and annoying and—
The door opened again, a man holding it wide for his wife. Kay probably would have left at that moment, gone back to her apartment to sulk in peace, if the tall, dark, and handsome man she assumed was Garret Williams hadn’t still been in the lobby of the restaurant. But nope, he was still there, still on his phone, still talking loudly enough that she could hear every single word through the open door.
And what she heard took her temper from bubbling to boiling.
“What kind of woman writes romance novels anyway?” he said. “She’s probably an awkward cow who’ll just stare at me through giant glasses the whole time I’m eating.”
Kay’s jaw dropped open. Her hand snatched at the door handle when it started to close.
He chuckled and said, “Exactly,” like the snarky little asshole he was.
A vision of a pot boiling over filled her mind, or maybe a tea kettle whistling as steam poured out its spout. Either way, all Kay knew was that she saw literal red as she stormed back into the restaurant.
Just as she approached him, he hung up the phone, tucking it into his pocket and opening his mouth.
“Garret Williams?” she asked.
Furious as she was, she’d managed to hold on to enough reason to make sure the man she was about eviscerate was, in fact, her absentee date.
He rotated to face her. “Yes?”
She reached into her purse, yanked out a paperback of her latest release. She’d intended to give it to Heather when they met up for coffee tomorrow, but this was more important. Plus, Heather had already read the ebook. The paper version had just been intended as a thank you for being awesome and a good friend and—
Right now that didn’t matter.
Kay slapped the book against Garret’s chest. The action made a satisfying smack, especially when she pretended it was actually her hand making contact with his cheek.