9. Hunter

Ifucking loved flying a helicopter.

Lottie, though, seemed to hate being a passenger. Or she just hated me. Probably both.

She sat in the copilot seat, arms crossed, black dress hanging from her form. The hint of a bra strap told me I shouldn't be excited for tonight, but there was always that part of me that thought maybe I'd get lucky. With her, it was always about luck.

"Loosen up," I said over the headset. I was met with a glare.

"Why? No one's going to take pictures of us in the fucking sky."

"Try to enjoy yourself. It's fun," I grinned. I turned the helicopter just slightly, angling our direction, and pointed out her window. "That's the wildlife refuge down there."

She turned her head and looked down, her fingers tightening around her biceps. "Cool."

I sighed. "Back there, where the sun is setting, is Thorodin Mountain," I continued, trying to pique her interest with a landmark I knew she'd seen at least a hundred times before. I didn't know what else I could do to perk her up, not when I needed to keep us from crashing and dying.

"Can you just get us there safely?" she snapped, whipping her head in my direction. The way the helmet and the headset sat on her skull made her look tiny, almost fragile. It was adorable, even though I knew she was anything but those things.

"Alright, fine."

————

The restaurant I'd booked for us was one I'd frequented a handful of times to impress clients or women. It had a helipad on the roof, and the view it held at the top of the building couldn't be matched by any other place in the entirety of Denver. I knew this because I'd checked.

But Lottie still wasn't impressed.

She leaned back in her chair beside me, her eyes cast somewhere off in the direction of the bustling waiters. Her expression was sour, irritated, hard lines and narrowed brows. "Lottie," I sighed. "There are people here. There are press here. I need you to not look like you hate me. Can you at least try not to look so miserable?"

"But I do hate you and I am miserable," she said, turning her head in my direction and plastering the biggest, fakest smile she could possibly muster on her face. If it wasn't so goddamn awkward, I would have laughed.

"It's a nice place. Just enjoy being here. Please."

"There are much nicer places that I've been to, Hunter."

"Look, why don't we just treat this as, I don't know, an interview. You were great at that."

She snorted. "Because I let you fuck me."

"Because you were interesting," I corrected.

A man dressed head to toe in white approached the table with two plates of food. We'd decided against the set menu and ordered instead from the chef's specialties—me, a wagyu steak cooked rare with asparagus and roasted potatoes, for Lottie, a lobster tail with butter and cheddar biscuits.

I might as well have taken her to Red fucking Lobster and let her pick her dinner from the tank.

After thanking the waiter for topping off our wine, she finally spoke again. "I'm not interesting, Hunter. You're just really boring."

"I guess I should have chosen someone who's nicer to me for this, huh?" I joked. I sliced into the wagyu, cutting through it as easily as butter. "Come on. Tell me something about you that I don't know."

She sighed as she plopped a bite of lobster on her tongue. "I keep a journal," she said around a mouthful. "I have since I was five. I've got, like, a hundred of them in my room."

My brows shot up. Although she was strong, controlled and focused, I'd never expected that. "See? That's interesting. What do you journal about?"

"How much I hate you."

And here I thought I'd made progress. "Tell me something I don't know about your dad."

She snorted around a mouthful of biscuit. "He thinks you're a pretentious dickhead. Lovingly, of course. And he used to ride a Harley when I was a baby. Even tried naming me Harley, but Mom wouldn't let him."

She cracked a smile at the thought of her mom. Even though I didn't know her well, and I didn't know what it was like to lose a parent, my chest ached for her.

"And he thinks your dad's a piece of shit."

I couldn't help the laugh that boomed from me. "He's not wrong."

She grinned. "He never is."

I glanced up from my food toward the table to our left, catching sight of a phone aimed in our direction. I hoped it was a video, purely so they could see the last five seconds of Lottie being civil and nice to me. I scooted my chair a little closer to her and set down my knife and fork, leaning in to press a kiss against her cheek.

She went as rigid as a piece of stone.

"The fuck?" she whispered.

"There are people taking photos of us," I said quietly, keeping my lips just by her ear so only she could hear me. "Kiss me. Just a quick one."

Her brows furrowed again. "No. You kiss me if you're so insistent."

"For fucks sake, Lottie, can you please just cooperate?"

"Fine."

She turned her head to me and fluttered her lashes closed, lifting her chin just enough to press a light, lingering kiss against my lips. And then she went straight back to her lobster and biscuits.

But I saw the flash. The photographer caught it. The news would be out by tomorrow, and things would spiral perfectly from there. "Thank you," I mumbled.

"Whatever."

Speaking to her was like trying to tear down a brick wall with your hands. Sometimes, you'd get little chunks that fell down, making you feel like you were that much closer. But then you'd look at your bloodied fingertips and realize you hadn't made any progress at all.

The waiter approached again with a fresh bottle of wine, all smiles and professionalism as he set it on the table and asked how the food was. Lottie nodded silently, eyes cast straight down at her plate. I at least gave him the decency of a few praising words.

"Look, let's just… talk about something safe," I sighed. "We can't be sitting here in silence. It doesn't look good."

She shrugged. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"

I watched as she took a bite of lobster, a little droplet of butter slipping down from the corner of her lip. Why is everything she does so fucking sexy? "Um," I tried to speak, a little lost for words when my brain conjured up the same image of her but instead of butter dripping from her mouth, it was my cum. "Horses. Let's talk about horses."

"I met one of your thoroughbreds today," she said nonchalantly, her eyes flicking to me between bites. "She was nice. Young. Why hasn't she sold?"

I wanted to bang my head against the table. Of course, she'd bring up that one particular horse. "Because she has health problems."

"You don't say?" she laughed. She wiped the little bit of butter from her chin, saving me from my own mind before it dripped down to her breasts. I'd surely have lost it then. "And how much money is that costing you?"

"Look, Lottie, I never said you were wrong."

"No, but you did try to tell me it was a good idea to keep breeding them. Surely, not selling that horse and having to pay the medical bills is enough of a lesson not to breed them again."

"This was supposed to be a safe subject."

"Nothing"s safe with you," she grinned, something mischievous behind her eyes that caused me to get lost somewhere between lust and fear. She was a fucking vixen.

The rest of dinner proceeded much the same. A safe topic turned into an argument, and then another, and another. I felt like I was running in circles. I wanted to catch her in a moment of calm, to show off how well we could work when she was happy, before it crashed into flames.

She played up the role as we walked out, a few flashes catching her off guard. But she kissed me just before we entered the helicopter, longer than the one we shared in the restaurant. I told myself that deep down she meant it, and I began to wonder if the arguing was what turned her on in the first place.

But as soon as the helicopter doors closed and we were alone once again, she dropped my hand and her smile vanished. That glaze of icy anger was back, locked behind brick walls, and all I could wish for was a sledgehammer or a wrecking ball. But all I had were my hands and my words.

It was like having whiplash all goddamn evening. It was getting old and I was beginning to think it wasn't worth it. My life would be a lot easier if she was only the manager of the breeding business, out of sight, out of mind. But I had goals, I had a plan for the entire business, and without her, I wouldn't be able to achieve any of it.

I had to decide if bloody fingers were worth it.