Free Not Another New Year’s by Christie Ridgway Page B

her body. All the curves and planes were out there for him—for anyone—to see. And he already knew who she was inside—spoiled and selfish. He shook her hand off his arm.
    “Still, princess,” he said. “You’re going to have to make reparation.”
    She tucked the hand that had been touching him underneath the other arm. “Of course. I can do that.” Her hair slid over her shoulder as she glanced around the bar. “Let me get my purse. Do you take American Express, or would Visa work better for you?”
    “I don’t take credit cards at all.”
    “Yes, you do,” she answered, sounding annoyed. “On the few occasions I’ve been in here before you saw me and ordered me out, plenty of people have used plastic.”
    “That’s one of your problems, Desirée. You think money—plastic money, no less—can solve everything.”
    She rolled her eyes. “There’s an ATM a block over. Tell me how much you want for the damage and I’ll be back with it in a flash.”
    Troy shook his head. “That’s not good enough either.”
    Now there was a little wild look about her. “What the heck is it you want, Troy?”
    To scare her off. To finally get her to go away. For months she’d been worming her cute little ass into his world. She’d made it too far already. His own mother had wanted to invite her to the family home at Christmas, for God’s sake.
    Yeah, he’d known Desirée had no one and likely nowhere to go for the holidays, but she was the enemy, wasn’t she? Sneaky like them too. It was a different kind of war they were fighting these days, war in which the combatants didn’t wear traditional uniforms or fight with traditional weapons. And Desirée could slay him, if she only knew, with her body in those jeans and T-shirt. With a kiss like the one she’d given his brother in front of all the world.
    He had to find a way to stop it! Troy Hart had medals for bravery, but she made them all seem a sham.
    It was much too easy for her to make him weak.
    “I want you to work, really work, to pay off the debt,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
    Her mouth pursed in suspicion. “What do you mean? You want me to go find a job?”
    “I’ll give you the job. Right here. Starting right now.” She would run, of course. He sensed that inside that poised shell of hers she was as scared of him as he refused to be of her.
    She propped one fist on one sweetly rounded hip. “Doing what?”
    “What ever I say.” He shrugged. “Swabbing the deck, cleaning the heads, the kind of real grunt work that will ruin your manicure as well as your mood.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    “Then you leave town, princess. Find yourself another kingdom in which to play.”
    He watched her mull his proposal over. There was her pride to consider, but he didn’t think it was any match for the idea of true labor. Labor supervised by him.
    Crossing his arms over his chest, he held his breath so he wouldn’t take in another lungful of that bewitching scent of hers. He was just a couple of seconds from finding peace, he figured, and he deserved that after all the sound and fury he’d experienced during war.
     
    “So, uh, well,” Tanner said, looking down at Hannah. The late afternoon sunlight bounced off her dark hair, finding threads of red and gold he hadn’t noticed before. “Did you do all right with Desirée?”
    “She’s very generous. With her clothes, with her space.” Hannah sucked her bottom lip into her mouthand Tanner pretended not to see it. “But she seems, I don’t know—lonely?”
    “Well…yeah.” Hell. Tanner hated thinking sympathetic thoughts about Dez, but the longer she hung around Coronado, the harder it was not to. “I’d say you’re a quick study of character.”
    Hannah suddenly smiled, rounding her blush-apple cheeks. “When you get up every morning to face twenty or more students with just as many different family situations, scholastic strengths, and personality traits, being a quick study