To distract herself, she focused on the man sitting at the table. He grinned at her like he’d just won the lottery, revealing teeth that were too white and straight to be real. It took her a full five seconds to realize he wasn’t going to stand or try to get her chair. Every single man in her family would have done it, from her father down to…
No, she wasn’t thinking about Devlin right now. She needed to be strong and have her walls firmly in place in order to deal with this prospective husband.
Carrigan sank into the seat across from him…and he still didn’t say anything. To buy herself time, she glanced at the menu. She wasn’t opposed to driving the conversation, but this was passing strange and shooting straight into Looking-Glass territory.
A waiter appeared at her elbow, and she set the menu down. Before she could speak, Chauncy cut in. “She’ll have a Riesling, and I’ll have scotch—the most expensive you have.”
She barely tolerated wine as it was, and she despised white wine. Especially sweet white wine. The waiter nodded and moved off, and Chauncy took that as his cue to actually speak to her. “You’re just as beautiful as your father promised. A little thicker than I’d like, but there are personal trainers for that kind of thing.”
Carrigan stared, too shocked to be pissed. He was no prize, his skin too orangey from excessive tanning, his teeth too perfect, his comb-over not doing a single thing to hide the fact he was balding. He was carting around a thick middle that was more barrel than six-pack, and he was going to criticize her body? She took a sip of water, more to buy herself time than because she was thirsty. What was she supposed to say? Half a dozen careful responses flitted through her mind, but what came out of her mouth wasn’t anywhere near polite. “With all due respect, I don’t know if I’d be willing to take personal trainer recommendations from you.”
He turned a mottled shade of red. “You have a mouth on you.” But then he smiled. “Good. I like them spirited.”
Good lord, she could actually feel her blood pressure rising by the second. She wasn’t a horse to be broken. The waiter appeared with their drinks, and she gulped hers down, doing her best to ignore the sticky sweetness clinging to the back of her tongue. “So, Chauncy, you invest in real estate?” Maybe if she could get him talking about himself, he’d stop saying things that made the hair on her arms stand on end.
“Yep. Us Chauncers have an eye for a good investment, especially when there’s land attached to it.” He chuckled like he’d made a witty joke. “Don’t you worry your pretty head, my dear—I have more than enough money to keep you decked out in diamonds and whatever you could possibly want.”
Carrigan finished her wine and resigned herself to a hellish evening. Once Chauncy got talking, he didn’t shut up. Part of her was grateful she wasn’t expected to do more than make inquiring and agreeing noises when he paused for breath, but the misogynistic comments he kept tossing her way made it hard to keep the bland expression on her face. By the time he told the waiter that no one at their table needed dessert, she was ready to throw her drink in his face. Hell, she would have, but the Riesling had stopped tasting like shit two glasses ago, and she was loath to waste good alcohol on a pathetic excuse for a man like Chauncy.
She pushed to her feet after he paid the bill, doing her best to ignore the head rush that accompanied the movement—and Chauncy’s hand touching the small of her back. When James did that, it made her want to arch into his touch like a cat demanding to be stroked. With Chauncy, all she wanted was a bleach bath. They made their way back to the entrance, and she used the excuse of putting on her coat to create some distance between them.
He’d apparently decided he approved of her, though, because he was hot on her heels when she hit the door. “Carrigan.”
She gritted her teeth and turned, an unforgivably weak gasp flying from her lips when he grabbed her arm and pulled her close. She smelled the scotch on his breath a second before he kissed her. She went completely still, her mind buzzing with white noise at how wrong this was. He forced his tongue into her mouth, licking her teeth.
That snapped Carrigan out of it. She pushed on his shoulders, trying to get some distance between them. Despite being on the soft side, Chauncy held her against him with apparent ease. Stop panicking and think, damn it. She willed her body to go soft, letting him back her against the wall.
Then she kneed him in the balls as hard as she could.
He went down like a chopped tree, making a high-pitched noise that was far more satisfying than it should have been. She gasped out a breath of air that felt a thousand times fresher than it had been when she walked out onto the sidewalk. This piece of shit thought he could put his hands on her? How many women had he tried this with before? She went cold at the thought. Not every woman was capable of defending herself, especially against a large man. Bastard. She used her toe to tip him onto his back and glared down. “I’m only going to say this once, you piece of shit. You touch me—or any other unwilling woman—again, and I’ll take great pleasure in slitting your throat while you sleep.” She stepped over his writhing body and looked up to find Liam in the middle of running toward her. “I have it taken care of.”