Betting On A Fortune

She winked at him.

“Look, if you don’t want my help, I can go.” His voice was low and his gaze held hers, but he didn’t seem amused by her nickname. She made a snap decision to retire the endearment.

“Your dad has already paid me,” Rodrigo said as he began to turn to leave. “It’s a shame that you’re not willing to at least keep an open mind. This is a tough business. But you seem to know what you’re doing.”

“What? You’re just going to walk away because I’m not jumping at your every directive?”

“I have other things I could be doing rather than standing around watching you.”

Ashley’s stomach performed the oddest little two-step at the thought of him watching her. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it. He meant he didn’t want to waste his time standing around waiting for her to finish what she was doing. But even rationalizing it like that didn’t slow her pounding heart or make her feel any less…less what?

Like she and all of her decisions were under a microscope.

“Did you stop to consider it from my perspective?” she said. “Until about twenty minutes ago, I had no idea that my father had hired a consultant. Had hired…you.” She thrust a finger at him. She hadn’t meant to touch him, but she accidentally poked him in the pec, and damn, if it wasn’t rock-hard. It made her traitorous mind start wondering if there was an equally rock-hard six-pack a little bit lower. She reined in that thought and continued. “Then you waltz in here and expect me to rearrange my floor plan because you say so?”

Rodrigo blinked then he held up his hands. He cleared his throat before he said, “We’ve gotten off to a bad start today. I apologize for that. I didn’t know your father would forget to tell you about our appointment. This has never happened before. I think it threw everything off. Would it work better for you if I came back another time?” He paused, his look suggesting he expected her to acquiesce.

“I think that would be for the best. I’m sorry, I’ve got the guys here this morning to help me and I’ve spent a lot of time laying out that floorplan and I want to see how it looks.”

“Okay, and I’m happy to roll up my sleeves and pitch in,” he said.

“As long as we do things your way, right?”

A smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. She couldn’t help but notice his strong jawline and perfectly formed lips, which were on the generous side but not so full that they looked feminine. No, they looked perfect. Perfectly kissable. She blinked away the thought.

“Since you feel so strongly about it, we’ll do it your way,” he said. “It’s easy to change if discover another way.”

“Hey, Ashley,” one of the guys called from the far corner of the bar. “Can you come and look at this? There’s not room to fit four chairs around this last table, and even with two, it’s almost jammed up against the table next to it.”

Ashley craned her neck to look at what Sam was talking about. Then she grabbed her diagram off the high-top.

Had she miscalculated? The reason she’d used graph paper was to draw the furniture to scale. One square equaled one foot… Maybe she’d measured wrong?

“Did you allow room for the chairs and room for the people to scoot back?” Rodrigo asked, looking over her shoulder at the plan. He was standing so close she could smell his cologne. Something grassy and masculine.

She felt her face heat. That’s exactly what she hadn’t done. She’d measured for the tables and chairs, but she hadn’t allowed for adequate clearance.

“You’re right,” she said, bracing herself for the inevitable I told you so.

But Rodrigo didn’t say anything. He just stood there smelling good.

She swallowed hard. “Go ahead and say it. I know you want to.”

“Say what?” he asked.

She steeled herself and finally met his gaze. But instead of the smugness she’d expected, his look was direct but neutral.

“I told you so,” she said.

“You told me what?” he asked.

She blinked. Coming from most people, those words would’ve sounded like he was being a smartass. But he didn’t seem that way.

“You were right about the table placement. Aren’t you just dying to say, ‘I told you so’?”

“No, I’m not. Ashley, I’m on your side. I didn’t come here to tear down everything you’ve worked so hard to set up. I’m just offering suggestions to make Provisions as successful as it can be,” He said. “You and I are a team. I want you to start thinking of us that way, okay?”

A team.

It was not hard at all for her to think of them that way. The only problem, she wasn’t thinking of team in the platonic sense of the word. Rodrigo Mendoza had already proven he could get under her skin, in the steamiest sense.

Yeah, that was more like it. Instead of team it was more like steam, because he had her so hot and bothered. And she didn’t quite know what to do about it.

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