Hula Girl by Ward Cosio Lara

Author:Ward Cosio, Lara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Thank you for giving me a chance,” Ford says once we’ve been seated.

We got lucky, skating by a party of seven to secure the last open table for two. The restaurant is alive with the chatter of a full house, the mood upbeat and a contrast to our awkward unintentional date.

“Listen,” I say, “I can’t even start to talk until I have a drink and some food. I’m too hungry and I’m too irritated.”

He nods and smoothly flags down our waiter, who had until this point been too occupied with other tables to even greet us.

I don’t wait for the waiter to explain the specials. Instead, I ask for an Old Fashioned and an order of shrimp and avocado tostadas. Ford joins me with the same drink and asks the waiter for his recommendation, taking him up on the carne asada entrée.

Taking my earlier warning literally, Ford is silent while we wait for our drinks. He looks around the restaurant, surveying the one long aqua wall, the other brick wall, and the ceiling that’s painted terra cotta between wood beams. In turn, I watch him, trying to decipher what he’s all about.

Tyler was, of course, right. Ford is drop-dead gorgeous. There’s nothing quite like a man who can rock both a business suit and a bathing suit. The way he cleans up is a sin. I can only imagine the impression he must make when he meets a client or shows up in court. I’d thought he was self-assured and entirely comfortable in his own skin in Maui, but seeing how easily he took down Bryce was a whole other level of confidence. It was both him standing up for himself and for me. And it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

He didn’t need to leap to my defense that way. Hell, he didn’t even need to come over to me in the first place. Now that I think of my interaction with Bryce before that, I can imagine what it might have looked like to an outsider. Bryce was crossing the line. He was also drunk. But I could have handled him.

Still, having Ford swoop in was—once I got past my shock at seeing him—incredibly flattering. It was one thing to have his attention when it was just the two of us in Maui, and yet another when he was making a claim over me to my ex. A very compelling thing, especially when I never thought I’d see him again.

And now we’re having dinner together.

Our waiter delivers our drinks and my order since it’s technically an appetizer. Ford takes the arrival of the food and drinks as his cue to speak.

“I’m sorry, Ava,” he starts. “I don’t know why I said I was your fiancé.” He pauses as if he’s fighting to keep from continuing. In the end, he can’t contain himself. “It’s just, that asshole of an ex needed to be shut down. I mean, I know guys like that. I know they think they’re owed the world.

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