Read First and Ten for Free Online Page B

before people even understood what it was. He had
commanded the dot com boom and was smart enough to leave before the
bubble burst. Or maybe it was his leaving that burst it. The idea
had been floated in business circles before.
    “Why are you a stylist?” he asked, shaking
her from the escape she wanted. “You were the top sales girl at the
Gap or something?”
    Rolling her eyes at the idea of that type of
nightmare, she sighed.
    “You don’t act like it’s a calling,” he
chided. “You don’t even do it full time.”
    “And you play football forty hours a week?”
she jibed.
    “I have a feeling you know exactly how
grueling my schedule is all year long. Besides, you don’t seem like
the type of girl to just sit around flipping through fashion
magazines all day long.”
    “With the internet it really does cut down on
that.”
    “Why do you do what you do?” he asked,
looking more at her than the traffic ahead. The white glow of the
dashboard haloed one side of his face creating a handsome cut to
his jaw.
    “Money, and you?”
    “I’ve got a talent and I love the game.”
    “There you go, I’ve got a talent and I have
bills to pay.”
    Rome nibbled on his bottom lip as his fingers
drummed on the steering wheel.
    “Danika.” As he said her name, she wanted to
watch his lips. The deep tone of his voice had a vibration to it
that sent shivers down to her toes. “Thanks for sharing your
Tuesday with me.”
    She wanted to thank him, he made the night
better, she hadn’t shared a Tuesday with anyone. Not even Esme.
Alone time had never been as fulfilling as tonight had been.
    “I don’t want you to be my stylist,” he
stated plainly as his eyes stayed focused on the road ahead instead
of at her. He turned to look out his side window, then back as they
pulled into the parking lot for the massage place.
    “Didn’t we already establish this?” Dani
asked a bit confused.
    “I’d like to run into you again.”
    Dani’s heart pounded hard as she gripped the
door handle. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she couldn’t
understand the mixed feelings twisting her stomach in knots.
    “Not on accident or set up by someone,” Rome
continued, but didn’t look at her. “I can’t let people in my life.
It’s dangerous and…well I don’t have time for trifling shit. You
seem like someone I could kick it with and not have it splashed all
over social media the next day.”
    “I said I didn’t have time for a new
client.”
    “I don’t want to be a client,” he said with a
deep timber in his voice that had her breasts aching. WTF! Her body
had her shivering, twisting and on the verge of vomiting, then hot
and bothered like someone flipped a switch. No downtime to react,
nope, but it wasn’t her body, it was him.
    “Client, friend, whatever,” she trembled as
the words came out. “It’s time, time I don’t have in my life.”
    “Right,” he replied, completely rebuffed as
his lips stuck out almost like a pouting child. “Focused, driven,
and on a schedule.”
    “Exactly.” Dani opened the car door and
stepped out. The stomach twisting continued again as she saw Rome
flicking his thumb over his phone screen as if scanning a page and
not caring what she had said. It was silly to think… “Except
Tuesdays.” The words tumbled from her lips before her mind could
stop them.
    Rome’s thumb froze on the screen as he turned
to look at her as if he’d forgotten she had even been in his car.
“What was that?”
    “Tuesdays,” she said again, suddenly feeling
like a teenager accepting a prom invite from the one boy they never
thought would even talk to them. “You could be my Tuesday treat
next week.”
    Oh! Fuck! She’d really just called a man her
Tuesday treat. His eyes did the eyebrow raise at her again and she
knew her face was fire engine red.
    “I…I…didn’t mean…see what I meant was…”
    “Tuesday at five, where will you be so I can
run into you?”
    “Leaving