“So, do you bring girls here often?” she asked as she sipped her wine.
“Actually, no.” Grant had been to the restaurant several times with family, but he had to admit this was the first time he’d ever brought a date there. “You’re the first.”
“I feel so special,” she said with a smile that betrayed her amusement. “I bet potentially running into your family can cramp your style.”
“It certainly does. I usually take my ladies out of town. But you requested we keep it local, so here we are.” Pepper looked around the restaurant. “I don’t see any Chamberlains, so I think we’re safe. For now, at least. You never know when more of you will start pouring out of the woodwork.”
Grant noted a tone in her voice as she spoke about his family. When she’d first rebuffed his advances years ago, he had thought at first it was about him. He was too young, too annoying, too short. But getting older, smoother, and taller hadn’t helped, either. Over the years, he’d started to wonder if it had anything to do with him at all. Pepper’s resistance seemed to have more to do with his name than anything else. And it wasn’t just her. Her mother always gave him the stink eye at the counter when he took his car in to be serviced. Her brother had made his distaste for the family perfectly clear when he stopped him outside the dry cleaner’s.
“Can I ask you a question? It’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.”
Pepper took a sip of her wine and nodded. “Okay.”
“This is awkward for a date, and I apologize, but why does your family seem to hate my family? I mean, I don’t think it goes both ways like a Hatfield and McCoy–type rivalry. I actually don’t recall your family ever being a topic of conversation or gossip at my house aside from the time Logan tried to break Blake’s nose in high school.”
“He didn’t try. He succeeded,” she said, almost proud of her brother’s achievement of rearranging Blake’s face.
“Okay, yes, Logan broke Blake’s nose. But I don’t even know what started that fight. Blake never wanted to talk about it and Dad shut the whole thing down pretty quickly. Did my family do something to yours? If one of us did, I have no idea what was done. Is it something I can fix or just the general stuck-up attitude that rubs people the wrong way? I know sometimes I don’t like Maddie at all, but we’re not all like her.”
At last, Pepper shook her head. “No, it’s not something you can fix, not really. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what happened between our families, either, but it happened long before you or I ever came along.”
Grant sighed and reached for his wine. His father. That wasn’t a surprise. He could easily see the man doing something to alienate Pepper’s family. As the only lawyer in town, he could’ve helped someone swindle them out of an inheritance with a legal loophole, kept someone from being prosecuted, gotten someone prosecuted unfairly . . . and then, the inevitable sex thing. Norman Chamberlain’s penis was probably the front-runner of causing strife between their families.
“Th
e way my mom talks about your family,” Pepper said, “I get the impression she either dated your dad, or a friend of hers did and it ended badly. That and the fact that your family seemed to get everything hers never did. She raised my brother and me to be suspicious of the whole family. The way she saw things, the Chamberlains suffered no consequences for their actions and cared about no one but themselves. She’d always warned me to stay away from the wicked Chamberlain boys. Apparently you’re just going to use me for sex and cast me aside.”
Grant’s eyes widened slightly, although he shouldn’t be surprised, if his father was involved. His own reputation probably hadn’t helped the matter, but he was always up front with women, so they shouldn’t feel chewed up and spit out when he was done with them. He certainly hadn’t cast aside Pepper, and he didn’t want to—a thought that scared the crap out of him.
“Well, no one sent me that memo, so I’m sorry to disappoint your mother and be a nice guy.”
“You know, you’d think she’d be more disappointed to be proven right than wrong. For my sake, at least. But she’d probably get some kind of satisfaction from you using me.”
“So what changed your mind?”
Pepper’s brow went up. “About what?”
“About me.”
“Who says that I’ve changed my mind?” she asked with a coy smile. “If you’ll recall, I only got roped into this whole scenario because I had a serious financial investment in it.”
Grant wanted to call bullshit on her. She was acting far too casual about the last week and they both knew that wasn’t true. Did acting like it was nothing make it easier when it turned into nothing? Probably. “Your financial investment has nothing to do with what happened on that kitchen floor.”
Her eyes widened and she started stuttering. “W-well, yes. I mean, th-that was just a onetime thing. Close quarters can make people do crazy things. Now that the house is nearly finished and Valentine’s Day is upon us . . . who knows what will happen? Maybe nothing.”
Grant leaned across the table and pinned her with his gaze. “Pepper,” he said in a low voice, “what do you want to happen?”
Pepper sucked in a ragged breath, her shiny red-painted lips parting softly. A flush rose to her cheeks, accentuating the carefully applied blush she already had on and reminding him once again of those peach-and-pink roses. Her dark eyes focused on him, a skittishness evident in her wary gaze.
“Be honest with me, Pepper. That’s all I ask of anyone.”
With imperfect timing, the waiter appeared with a caprese salad for Pepper and a wedge of iceberg for him. His appearance killed the intense atmosphere that had hovered over them.
“I don’t know what I want, Grant. It’s only been a week. Aside from the kitchen and the kiss before the peeper struck, it isn’t exactly like we’ve been fostering a relationship. We’ve been doing home improvement projects. You could use me for sex and cast me aside any moment now, proving my mother right all along.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Her gaze had been focused on her plate, but now she met his eyes with her own. “To get back at me for last time?”