Black Girls and Bad Boys: Stealing Loretta Read Online Free Page B

to seal the deal before he had to worry
about Gina or her father. The cash was safely hidden away and Ursino wasn’t
expecting him till seven.
    Actually, Loretta’s place might be better –
no chance of Gina turning up there unannounced.
    “It’s not far from here.”
    “Hmm?”
    “The restaurant. It’s not far.” She gave
him an uncertain smile.
    “Good. I’m starving. You?”
    “I... I suppose I am too.” All the certainty
she’d had when they left the bar was gone.
    “Are you okay?”
    She shrugged.
    “I can’t even begin to imagine what it must
have been like for you – having a gun pointed at you.”
    She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at
him. All she did was put one foot in front of the other.
    “Look, you don’t have to come for lunch if
you don’t want to. I just thought you might appreciate the distraction.” It was
a risky strategy, but she was on the verge of leaving anyway.
    “No. No, you’re right.”
    “I don’t like to see a stunning,
intelligent woman upset.”
    The smile she gave him wasn’t very broad,
but it was better than her previous attempt.
    “I mean it.”
    “You’re terrible, do you know that?” But
she was warming to him, it was there in the way she walked a little closer.
    “I’m not going to apologise for finding you
attractive.”
    She put a nervous hand up to smooth her
hair.
    Jordan had a sudden flash of inspiration
and stopped walking. “I know what’ll cheer you up.”
    “What?”
    “Lunch first.”
    She half squinted at him. He got ready for
the questions, but she didn’t ask any.
    Wow. Gina would have nagged him until all
the joy drained out of the surprise and they were both in a bad mood.
    “Here we are.”
    Oh crap. It was that fancy French
restaurant he’d heard about. Just as well he’d robbed a bank that afternoon.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any of the money on him. “You been here before?”
he asked as he followed her inside.
    “No. I heard it was expensive.”
    Yeah, me too. And now he couldn’t ask to split the bill without sounding cheap.
Oh well, it would have to go on the credit card. A few more jobs and he
wouldn’t need to worry about cash for a while. “My treat, of course.”
    “Why, thank you.” There was more than a
hint of mischief in her smile. She’d brought him to the priciest restaurant in
town on purpose. He had no one to blame but himself.

CHAPTER 3
    ––––––––
    I f he wanted to take her to lunch, it was
only fair that he foot the bill. She didn’t even want to be there in the first
place.
    Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. She
wasn’t sure she should be there. Wanting was a whole different question.
    The waiter who showed them to a quiet table
for two had a real French accent. A warm, golden light cast a subtle glow over
the room and the furniture was quaintly mismatched. Jordan jumped in front of
the waiter to pull out Loretta’s chair.
    She sat down, enjoying the attention. It
seemed like Sean was the only man who’d noticed her existence in the past year
and that was hardly anything to get excited about. Nothing was going to happen
with Jordan, so it was safe to sit back and bask in his attempts to win her
over.
    Plus she was about to get a pretty good
meal out of it.
    After presenting them the menus, the waiter
asked if they’d like a jug of water and disappeared to fetch it.
    “So, Loretta from the bank. What do you
actually do there? When you’re not being robbed.”
    “I’m the assistant manager.”
    His eyebrows lifted. “Impressive.”
    “And what do you do?”
    “I’m self-employed. A little of this, a
little of that. Whatever comes up.”
    “That sounds dubious.” It just slipped out.
She must have been tipsy.
    Fortunately, he took it in good spirits and
laughed. “Not really. Imports and exports mainly. I suppose I act as a fixer
for people – getting rid of what they don’t want and getting them stuff they
do.”
    “Very mysterious.” The more he said,