Bad Boy Brit (A British Bad Boy Romance) (26 page)

Ha! He wishes.

“I’ll just have water for now,” he added.

I was surprised. I’d assumed he liked to drink, considering what I’d seen and read about him in past gossip columns. Maybe he’d finally realized this was a business dinner and decided to keep his head straight. I felt a pang of guilt over my decided lack of professionalism so far, and I almost regretted ordering the wine.

The waitress flashed Kaiden a simpering smile. “Okay, Mr. Cross. I’ll bring you our best sparkling water, and the wine for your…
girlfriend.
” She gave me a withering look as she said the word ‘girlfriend’ in the most condescending tone I’d ever heard.

I definitely needed that wine now. No regrets.

“Oh, and are you ready to order any food?” she continued.

I ordered a chicken dish that looked nice, and Kaiden ordered three appetizers to start with and the biggest steak on the menu for his main course. The waitress read our orders back to us, and we nodded to confirm.

“All right, I’ll put the order in, and I’ll be back in a moment with your drinks,” she said, still ignoring me in favor of Kaiden.

“Thanks,” he replied, eyes crinkling around the side as he smiled. “I think my
date
is really looking forward to trying that wine.”

The waitress forced a smile which looked more like a grimace before finally walking away, and I pressed my lips together in a thin line as Kaiden flashed me a beatific grin. I wasn’t one of his bimbos or one of the many girlfriends he flashed around town, and I also wasn’t going to be impressed by him flashing his cash. If he remembered me even the slightest bit, he’d know that I wasn’t a materialistic girl, and the most expensive wine on the menu certainly wasn’t going to impress me.

I could also do without him telling people I was his damned date.

We sat in an awkward, stilted silence for a moment. Well,
I
was awkward, but Kaiden was slumped back in his seat, his arm slung over the back of it in a casual manner. He was staring at me, and now that he’d removed those stupid sunglasses, I could see the twinkle in his piercing blue eyes.

“Okay,” I finally said, clasping my hands together in what I hoped looked like a strong and confident gesture. “I have some ideas for what we should do first. I spent all day on the phone, setting up some press—”

“God, you’re sexy,” he cut in, almost as if it had slipped out accidentally.

I chose to ignore it.

“As I was saying…” I continued, feeling the heat rise up my body. I was grateful for the fairly dim lighting in the restaurant so he couldn’t see my face turning red.

“Riley, I’m gonna level with you,” he said, interrupting me again. He leaned forward, copying my body language. “I don’t really care about all of this business talk. I’ll just try to do what I’m told when it comes to that side of things, and you don’t have to explain it all to me. I trust that you know best.”

I nodded curtly, unsure why the hell we were even sitting here if he didn’t want to discuss what my PR plan was. I’d worked hard on this, and I should’ve been laying it all out on the table right now. Literally. So what the hell was this dinner for, if not that?

“I just need all of this crap to go away. All I want to do is fight. The rest of it is a minor annoyance to me. A stupid buzzing in the background,” he continued. “But right now, that buzzing is getting too loud. I want it silenced, and I know you can do that. I don’t need to know all the ‘on paper’ details.”

Sitting back, I thought about his words for a few moments. I guess he had a point; if he was only in this business for the fighting, then the rest was merely an inconvenience. An unwanted side effect. I supposed it must’ve been rough to have every mistake made public for the whole world to see.

“I see. Fair enough. So…is Serra’s baby yours, Kaiden?” I asked.

I cringed internally as I waited for his reaction to my question. If we went for denial and Serra managed to prove that he’d been lying nine months down the line, then his reputation would be damaged irrevocably.

“I’ve already told you that the baby isn’t mine.”

“But if there’s even the slightest chance—”

The dark look he gave me shot me down instantly. Clearly he had no intention of talking about this tonight.

Luckily at that moment, the waitress from earlier broke the tension by bringing over our drinks. Kaiden thanked her politely, but his face was still dark and unsmiling.

“Cheers,” he said stiffly, raising his water to my long-stemmed wine glass.

“Kaiden, I’m sorry if—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, cutting me off yet again.

Jeez. When had he become this person? He was so different from the sweet boy I once knew. I almost wished that I’d been around to see the transformation; then I might’ve been able to wrap my head around it all a little more.

“Sorry I snapped,” he added a few seconds later, making my heart soften a little. “I’m just so sick of all this negative media shit.”

“Understandable.”

I took a swig of my wine without breaking eye contact with him, and he smiled. I couldn’t work out why, but I felt as if he were testing me somehow. And speaking of testing things, I was glad I hadn’t shot him down when he’d insisted I try out this expensive wine. It was probably the best wine I’d ever had; not that I was some sort of connoisseur or anything.

“So,” I finally said, trying to get back some of my earlier control. I didn’t want him to think that I was the type of woman who would sit quietly and be pushed around, so I needed to make him see that. “You don’t want to talk about the baby, and you don’t want to discuss the nitty-gritty details of my PR plan…so what
do
you want to talk about?”

A dirty grin appeared on his face, and I screwed my nose up in a disdainful expression. I was acting like I was repulsed by the thoughts that were clearly in his mind, but my insides were swirling with lust and heavy emotions, as much as I hated to admit it.

“I want to find out more about you,” he said, leaning in a little.

“You don’t need to know more about me.” I fiddled around with my glass, trying to keep myself focused on something real, something I could grasp onto. “I’m just a member of your
staff
, remember? I seem to recall a certain someone saying that last night.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. That girl was horrible, wasn’t she? But I actually do like to get to know my staff members. And that includes you.”

I felt emboldened by this remark, glad he was finally viewing me as a member of his work-team rather than a possible conquest. He might have screwed around with every other woman that had crossed his path since he became
Kaiden Cross: Ultimate Fighting Champion
, but I wasn’t going to be one of them.

Not if I could help it, anyway.

“I’m not just saying that,” he said, as if he assumed I didn’t believe him. “I’m close with everyone who works for me.”

“Like your manager?” I said. “I thought you two looked a little cozy beside the cage last night…”

I expected him to be amused by this, or at least a little offended, but he just mused thoughtfully instead. “You always were witty, Riley. Although that definitely wasn’t one of your best jokes,” he said.

Wait, what?
Did that mean he actually remembered me?

“What did you say?” I asked, eyebrows knitted in a confused frown. My heart was pounding heavily, my breathing had become a little labored, and I was suddenly and inexplicably terrified about where this conversation was going to go next.

A waiter appeared with our meals at that exact moment, and Kaiden stared at me like a deer in the headlights, showing some genuine emotion for the first time since I’d seen him again. Clearly he hadn’t meant to say what he’d said out loud, and it seemed like he was regretting letting it slip out.

“Do you remember me?” I asked, pressing him for an answer when he didn’t immediately reply. I didn’t want this moment to slide by; this could be the only opportunity I got to bring this topic up.

He leaned backwards and finally spoke again once the waiter was out of earshot. “Of course I remember you, Riley. How could I forget you?” he said.

He was vulnerable now; that much was obvious in his voice. I wanted to answer him, but I didn’t know what to say. I knew that he was unforgettable to me, but in the last twenty-four hours, I’d managed to convince myself that I hadn’t had any impact on his life.

“We were best friends as kids. How the hell could I not remember you?” he continued.

“But…I…you just didn’t seem to know me at all. You even called me by a different name earlier,” I replied.

Now that he’d admitted he remembered me, all of his behavior towards me up until now seemed even more bizarre. I didn’t know whether I should feel relieved that it was all out in the open, or if I should be deeply confused by the whole thing.

Right now, I was definitely leaning closer towards ‘deeply confused’.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just so weird to see you again. I didn’t know how to act, because I figured you wouldn’t like me anymore, so I pretended I didn’t remember. Stupid, huh?”

“Well…yeah. That’s one word for it.”

“I see you’re just as honest as ever,” he said. He chuckled, an authentic warmness on his face. “By the way, you didn’t say anything about recognizing me either. You could have.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“I didn’t make it easy for you to say anything, though, did I?”

I shook my head slowly. Once again, I had no idea what the hell to think. Was
this
who Kaiden Cross was now, and was the other unbearable version of him all an act he put on for god knows what reason? Seriously, which version of him was real?

He began to tuck into his appetizers, and I smiled as he wolfed them down in what seemed to be five seconds flat. It reminded me of how he’d been as a kid.

“I never understood how you could eat so much and never gain weight. You used to eat entire packets of cookies and not gain an ounce…meanwhile whenever I so much as look at a crumb, I double my dress size,” I said, looking pointedly at the mountains of food in front of him. “And you’re still like that! Isn’t your metabolism ever going to slow down?”

He grinned. “I guess I’m still a growing boy.”

Boy? Nope. Kaiden Cross was definitely a man. There was nothing immature or boyish about him—well, maybe aside from his personality—not his chiseled good looks or his height or those ripped muscles of his. He gave me another grin a second later, blue eyes twinkling, and my heart did a little pirouette.

Yup, he was a man, all right.

Just as I worked up the bravery to finally ask him for an update of his life—I wanted to know everything that I’d missed out on—his expression hardened once more.

“Speaking of growing…who’d have thought that you’d grow up into such a bangable babe?” he said.

“What?” I asked, eyes widening.

I was dumbfounded. He’d gone from being relatively normal to ‘sleazy asshole mode’ within just a few minutes. I’d thought that once he’d admitted he remembered me, the rest of his douchebag act would vanish.

Apparently not.

“Come on,” he said, arching an eyebrow and licking his lips in an over the top gesture which I found utterly disgusting. “You want me. I saw the way you were looking at me earlier.”

“Okay, that’s it!” I said, finally snapping as he suggestively waggled his eyebrows at me. “I cannot stand another moment of your crap, whether I work for you or not. I’m outta here. Oh, and by the way? You wish. I’ve seen whale sharks more attractive than you.”

I quickly reached into my purse and threw some cash down on the table—I didn’t want to owe him for anything, let alone a glass of wine and a meal—and then I turned on my heels and stalked towards the exit. Rage and frustration were burning through me, but there was also a twinge of hurt coursing through my veins. How could he treat me like I was nothing more than a piece of meat? Or a ‘bangable babe’, as he’d so eloquently put it. It felt awful.

Wasn’t there a law which stated that men who acted like that were required to be rounded up and tossed into the ocean with a pair of lead boots? Oh wait, no…that was just my perfect fantasy world. My mistake.

I made my way outside the restaurant and turned into the nearest alleyway, where I paused for a second, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily as I tried to regain my composure. I’d never been through anything like that before in my life, and to be pushed that far was just ridiculous. I decided to tell Eric that I couldn’t cope with Kaiden as a client. It just wasn’t worth it.

Oh, and speak of the devil…

“There you are.” Kaiden’s smarmy voice burst around the corner a few seconds later. “You didn’t get too far.”

“Oh, get the hell away from me!” I said, raising my eyes to meet his.

I knew I shouldn’t be speaking to him like that, but now that I’d decided I didn’t want to work with him anymore, I didn’t care. I just wanted him to leave me the hell alone. He’d changed too much, and there wasn’t even a shred of my old friend left in the man who stood before me now.