No Way to Treat a Lady
Page 5
Tasha turned her glare onto Joss, who shrugged. “He does tend to have a mind of his own.”
“But it’s not fair. Come on, Maisey, you know that shop would be perfect for Treats. Kole can have a studio anywhere.”
But Maisey just sighed. “We’ll find somewhere else, Tash. Stop getting your knickers in a twist.”
Tasha blew out a long, irritated breath, tempted to kick sand over Kole. “I’ve known you eleven years,” she said to him. “And I swear you’ve frustrated and irritated me nearly every day.”
“Only nearly? I’m slipping.”
She glowered. “I should have guessed you were going to be a thorn in my side the first day we met.”
“Where was that?” Maisey frowned.
“You were making muffins,” Kole said.
“You remember?” Tasha certainly did.
The two girls had met on the first day of high school, had discovered they shared a love of cooking, and had quickly become firm friends. Maisey had invited Tasha to her house one Saturday to try out a new muffin recipe, and the thirteen-year-old girls had been halfway through the preparation when Kole and Joss had burst into the kitchen, hot, sweaty, and filthy after a weekend rugby match. At seventeen, both boys had been loud and arrogant, and they’d proceeded to make the girls’ lives a misery.
“Oh yes, I remember,” Maisey said. “You dipped your muddy fingers in the mixing bowl, ate all our chocolate chips, flicked muffin mix at each other, and generally made a nuisance of yourselves.”
“Doesn’t sound like us,” Joss remarked.
“Maisey cried, and you stamped your feet like a toddler,” Kole said to Tasha.
“Do you remember what you called me?” Tasha asked.
“I said, ‘What a fucking banshee,’ and you threw your shoe at the door.”
Maisey and Joss laughed. Kole grinned. Tasha just scowled. “At least Joss has grown up a bit,” she said. “You haven’t changed at all. In fact I think you’ve gotten worse.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a fucking compliment!”
Laughing, Kole brought up a hand to adjust his sunglasses, and the gold ring on his right hand glinted in the sunlight. The ring had belonged to Harry, she was sure—his and Maisey’s older brother, who had died in a motorbike accident five years before, driving home too fast after an argument with a girlfriend. Tasha had watched Kole throughout the funeral as he’d comforted Maisey and her older sister, Skye. He had remained dry-eyed, jaw knotted and fists clenched, clearly determined not to show any emotion. He’d been the same ever since, as if he focused on only two things in life—what he wanted, and the easiest way to get it.
“For the record, I’m close to throwing my shoe at you now,” she stated. “Maisey and I have planned this shop for years.” They were going to call it Treats to Tempt You, and they planned to sell handmade chocolate truffles, ice-cream, and espresso coffee, mainly to the thousands of tourists that flocked to Doubtless Bay in the summer, but also hopefully to locals as well as they spread the word. “You’re standing in the way of us fulfilling our childhood dream. How does that make you feel?”
“I feel fine, thank you.”
She tried again. “What about Elle and Caitlin? Maisey and I were lucky to find two other girls willing to come in with us and run the place, but what if they change their minds because of your idiocy?”
“Tasha, I’m not stopping you from having a shop. Just from having that shop.”
“I want that shop.”
“So do I. And I got there first. So deal with it.” His good humor had vanished, and he was glaring at her behind his glasses, she was sure of it.
But she’d fallen in love with the shop on the waterfront as soon as she’d seen it. She and Maisey had driven around for days looking at places, and nothing had seemed suitable—they were all off the beaten track, too expensive, or too run down and would take money to fix up. The shop in the harbor was ideal—small but not too small, with a proper kitchen, and a room out the back for storage. It was neat and clean, with enough room for a counter and a few tables and chairs, although mainly they were intending to offer a takeaway service. It was perfect.
They’d gone into the agency and asked for details, only to be told that someone had already agreed to take the place the day before. He wouldn’t be signing the lease papers for another eight days because the owner, Andrew, was returning from a trip to Peru and wanted to check out the new tenant for himself. But for all intents and purposes, the deal was done.
It was only when they’d met up with the boys and talked about their disappointment that they’d discovered Kole was the one who’d beaten them to it.
She’d already tried several times over the past week to talk him into giving the shop to them, without success. But she wasn’t prepared to give up yet. “I know you want a new studio, but it doesn’t have to be on the waterfront. We need somewhere people walk past. I’ll help you look for somewhere else; I’ll even ring around the agencies and scout out some properties for you.”
“Actually I do need somewhere visible as I want to pull business in off the street for family holiday portraits, and the waterfront shop is perfect.”
“You’re such a selfish son of a bitch!”
“A selfish son of a bitch with a shop,” he said, smirking.
“Whatever happened to ladies first?” she snapped.
He lifted his glasses to study her. “Oh, in every other way I believe ladies should always come first.”
Joss sniggered, and she sent Kole a sarcastic look. “Call yourself a gentleman?”
He lowered his glasses again. “Nope.”
“Kole!”
“I want the shop, Tasha, and I got there first, fair and square. Stop nagging. You sound like a fishwife.”
Irritation and frustration whirled inside her, and she pushed herself to her feet. Glaring at him, she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. She didn’t usually like him to know how much he annoyed her, but for once she didn’t try to hide how upset she was.
“You just don’t care, do you? You’ve got what you want, and you don’t care that you could be helping your sister and her friends achieve a lifelong dream.”
“Nope,” he said again.
She clenched her fists in her pockets. “You think you’re omnipotent, don’t you?”
“Better than being impotent.” He grinned.
She was too angry to smile, even though Joss and Maisey were trying to stifle their laughter. “You’re like it in everything,” she said hotly, “in work, in sport, with women.”
“Impotent?”
“Omnipotent,” she yelled. “Using them and then dropping them as soon as they get serious.”
“Doesn’t sound like me at all.” He looked smug and self-satisfied, which only served to irritate her more.
She ground her teeth. “I bet you think you can make any woman in the world fall in love with you.”
He leaned over to take a mint from the tube Joss offered him, popped it into his mouth, and lay back on the sand. “Yep.” His provocative grin heated her up like a Bunsen burner, and steam almost hissed out of her ears.
“Well, you’re not all-powerful, and anyway it wouldn’t surprise me if you were impotent.”
He chuckled. “Want me to prove I’m not?”
Fury swept over her. “Like I’d ever sleep with you! I can’t imagine why any woman would ever want to, and I certainly can’t conceive how a woman would ever fall in love with you.”
He shrugged. “You have to get to know me first.”
“Kole Graham, I know you probably better than anyone else save your sister, and I wouldn’t fall for you if you were the last man on Earth. In this galaxy. In the universe!”
At that, he sat up and slid off his sunglasses, then studied her, his arms around his knees. “I see.”
Maisey laughed. “Oh, I think you would, Tash. He’s quite determined when he wants something.”
His laz
y, amused smile turned the Bunsen up higher, and something exploded inside Tasha. “Absolutely not.” She bent to look into his eyes. “You’d fall for me before I ever fell for you.”
A brief silence fell. Then Maisey said, “Uh-oh,” while Joss shook his head and gave a low whistle.
Kole held his sunglasses by one of the arms, and he swung them around in a circle. “You reckon?”
Not looking away, holding his gaze, she said, “Yep.”
Kole’s eyes, a warm hazel, studied her with interest, as if for the first time in his life he was really, truly looking at her. He tipped his head to the side, and the corner of his mouth curved up. “Hmm,” he said.
A frisson trailed down Tasha’s back as if someone had run a finger down her spine.
Oops.
Buy from your favorite retailer
Other Books by Serenity Woods
Indie-Published
The Treats to Tempt You series
The Treats Quintet
Treat with Caution
Treat her Right
A Rare Treat
Trick or Treat
A Festive Treat
The Between Quintet
A Secret Between Friends
The Treats Tasters
A Taste of Things to Come
His Christmas Present
Remember Me
Two Passionate Proposals
Stranded with a Scotsman
Written in the Stars
Samhain Publishing
The Love in Reverse series
Seven Sexy Sins
Six Naughty Nights
Five Exotic Fantasies
The Sensual Healing series
An Uncommon Sense
Making Sense
Talking Sense
White-Hot Christmas
Something Blue
(also in Come Rain or Come Shine anthology)
Escape Publishing
Summer Fling
One Hot Winter’s Night
Lyrical Press
The Seven Sisters series
Sweet as Honey
Daisy Chains
Santa’s Secret
Whistling Dixie
Mr. Insatiable
Entangled Publishing
(writing as Faye Robertson)
Kiss & Make Up
Holly’s First Noel
Bloodlust
About the Author
Official Bio
Serenity Woods lives in the sub-tropical Northland of New Zealand with her wonderful husband and gorgeous teenage son. She writes hot and sultry contemporary romances with a happy ever after, and is a member of the Romance Writers of New Zealand. She would much rather immerse herself in reading or writing romance than do the dusting and ironing, which is why it’s not a great idea to pop round if you have any allergies.
Unofficial Chat
Thank you so much for buying and reading this book. I so hope you enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it! The beautiful Northland of New Zealand takes some beating as a setting for a romance, which is why a good proportion of my novels are set up here. Sexy stories fit so well with a hot and steamy climate! You can check out all my books (over thirty now) at your favorite retailer, or on my website below. If you’re interested, I also write epic fantasy as Freya Robertson, and the first in The Elemental Wars series, Heartwood, won the 2014 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novel. You can check out more about Freya on Serenity’s website here.
Website: http://www.serenitywoodsromance.com
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