He’d left his phone behind, and that was something he never did. But all week this woman had been playing him. She’d send him a message — usually steamy — then he’d reply, probably way too quickly, and then he wouldn’t hear from her for hours, or sometimes even until the next day.
Tyler didn’t play games. He’d told her that in the bar. Okay, so he’d said, “Let the games begin,” but he hadn’t meant it. Not really. Not in that sense. What made the entire situation so damn awful was that he was allowing her to game him this way. He knew what she was doing and yet he wasn’t pulling back.
By the time he made his way back to his office, he decided he was done. That was it. He was going to cancel dinner. It was decided. After all, he was Tyler freaking Knight. If she wasn’t going to respect him, then he wasn’t about to waste his precious time on cheap trash like her. The world was full of women who wouldn’t jerk him around, and who would make excellent bed companions.
He felt good in his decision. Even forced a halfway decent smile to pop up on his lips.
That was until he reached his office and picked up his phone. Once he saw the picture Elena had sent him while he was gone, his brain fried.
Dinner was most certainly back on … and dessert was essential.
Chapter Ten
Tucked away in Pike Place Market, and definitely not an easy place to find, the Pink Door was a classic Seattle destination, and Elena had wanted to check it out for quite some time.
That Tyler had chosen this location surprised her. She really hadn’t taken him for the dinner-and-cabaret type of guy. She stepped from her cab and walked down the alley toward the restaurant.
Elena instantly spotted Tyler. He looked far too suave in his custom-tailored suit, which hugged his shoulders to perfection and cinched in at his waist to show how well-built he was. The man was tall, a few inches above six feet, and with his dark hair and blue eyes, and that come-and-get-me grin, he was doubtless a fantasy man come to life. For most women.
It was a good thing she wasn’t most women.
She would have to tell herself this continuously if she spent more time with the man. It hadn’t been easy for her to keep stringing him along, to maintain this game of hers as long as she had, and she’d been doing it at a distance for days. Now, they were getting up close and personal again. She’d had to remind herself that he was a cold, ruthless businessman who didn’t care how many people he ruined on his mission to become the best of the best.
Screw him! squaring her shoulders, the small amount of guilt she’d been feeling over her impromptu game fled and she decided she was going to go through with this. Men like Tyler never felt pain. Even if the pain she inflicted was minuscule, she hoped to do some damage to his monumental ego.
All of the Knight brothers lived by their own rules and took whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it. Obviously. They took and took until there was nothing else to take and then they walked away without ever looking back. Like everyone in the worthless .01 percent.
Elena wasn’t a fool. She didn’t believe that anything she could do would make a huge impact on this insensitive man. But if she got just a hint of revenge, she could go to sleep knowing she’d done something for the lower classes. And we were all lower classes nowadays, or almost all of us. Us versus them.
He spun toward her when she was only a few feet away, and the power of his look made her stop in her tracks. Her stomach tightened as they engaged in a stare-off, and then he came forward, quickly closing the gap between them.
“I wasn’t sure you would show up,” he said, his voice a low rumble that made her body react in a way she absolutely didn’t want it to do.
“I wasn’t sure I would come.” She couldn’t stop those words.
“I like your honesty. Shall we?” He held out his arm, but she didn’t move.
He raised an eyebrow in question, and she took a fortifying breath before placing her arm in his. Though she was expecting the electrical shock, it still sucked out the last remaining oxygen in her when it came. How was she going to carry through with her plan when she couldn’t control her body’s reaction to his?
“I have to do this.”
Before she knew what he meant or what was happening, he backed her up against the brick wall and pressed his body against hers. And then his head descended and his lips were on hers. She told herself not to give in to him, but her body betrayed her again. Her hands reached up and gripped his arms and her lips fell open.
What started as a tingling in her body flared up into a supernova, and she forgot all about her plans of revenge, all about making this man sweat. He was the one making her sweat, making her forget where she was — who she was.
“That was just a taste of what it will be like between us,” Tyler said.
It took a moment for her to realize that he’d stopped kissing her, that he was now leaning back. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on his face. When she did, her temper quickly quenched the fire that had been burning inside her.
His smug expression told her more about the man than any of his smarmy words could. He knew he was gorgeous, knew he was a fantastic lover, knew he could get or have anything he wanted. Well, this poor little rich boy wouldn’t have her – at least not again. But he sure as hell would want to.
She said nothing as she turned toward the famous pink door and opened it herself. She wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of acting like the gentleman he was pretending to be. They stepped inside, the ambience of the restaurant warm and inviting, with candles offering soft lighting and the tables set in a charming way.