ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (3 page)

“Lieutenant Corporal Carlyle…”

“You can bite me too, if you’d like,” Dalton
smiled wickedly. “But only if you’re being a
bad
little girl. And the thing about
bad
little girls is that, well… they get
punished.
”

I swallowed my anger and gave him a curt
little smile. As much as I wanted to retort back… I couldn’t let him get to me,
particularly not at work.

“Enjoy your meal,” I replied, turning on my
heel and strolling back towards the kitchen. I was
done
with that jackass.

“Actually, I could use a little salt!” Dalton
called after me.

With an exasperated sigh, I whipped around,
snatched an unused shaker from a nearby table outside my section, and slammed
it down beside his wrist. To my surprise, he actually flinched, and Marines at surrounding
tables looked up from their meals.

“Your salt,
Lieutenant Corporal Carlyle,
” I muttered furiously between gritted
teeth.
“Will that be ALL for you now,
SIR?”

He looked into my venomous eyes with his
usual confidence, only tempered now by surprise. “Yes, I believe that will do
nicely.”

“Very well then.”

I started to pull away when his voice piped
up one last time.

“On second thought…”

I turned back, staring at his beautifully
chiseled face. I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him or kiss him.

Probably both.

In that order.

“Pepper?”

Taking a second to get myself under control,
I reached back out and grabbed a pepper shaker, setting it down calmly.

“That’s a good girl,” he said before smiling
coyly, his hand just barely brushing mine as I stepped away from the table.

I hated to admit it to myself… but I
enjoyed
his antagonization. It was a
break from the usual hum drum routine. He was effortlessly making my blood
boil, but I had to concede that his hot body and total fucking arrogance was
kind of exciting for me… what can I say?

Pissed me off, but it was working for me.

The rest of the night went off without much
of a hitch. Dalton left me alone after my brief snap, although I could still
feel his eyes on my back – or my
ass
,
more accurately.

That’s why I was a little confused when I
swung back by a little later on to pick up discarded dishes, only to find out
that half the table had already left – including him.

Before I could focus on that, our serving
team was whisked back away from the chamber so that they could have their
little post-banquet award show, or whatever they were doing. All I knew was
that the lights were dimmed, the stage was lit up, and we were banned from
entering until afterwards.

We made use of our hour-and-a-half of free
time by cleaning up the kitchen. We went ahead and started closing up
everything in the hidden corridors – racking up the sodas, cleaning out the tea
urns, breaking down refresher tables, cleaning and stacking the small, black,
rounded drink trays, cleaning and breaking down our equipment, and generally
just willing the night to finish out and let us all go home.

When the banquet was finally over, we were
only barely notified. Most of the Marines disappeared without a word, and we were
left with a huge room that needed to be disassembled and cleaned.

Luckily, the closing sidework went quickly.
The other servers were apparently just as anxious to get out as I was, and we
quickly scrambled around to rip up the tablecloths, help the couple of
maintenance guys roll the closed tables backstage, and rack up all the glasses
and silverware.

We still had an hour of polishing glasses and
wiping and rolling silverware to look forward to, but hopefully that would go
quickly enough.

“What a night, huh?” One of my coworkers,
Beth, quietly asked. I didn’t know her all that well, but she was one of the
friendlier, more down-to-earth servers on our little freelance brigade.

“Yeah,” I nodded, wiping the sweat from my
brow. “That was
way
more trouble than
I thought it would be.”

“You’re telling
me.
Seriously, he only scheduled
ten
of us? What the
fuck
was
Arnold thinking? We’ve
never
handled
more than ten people apiece, let alone three dozen…”

“He
wasn’t
thinking,” I grumbled, glancing around to ensure that our boss wasn’t
around. “If Arnold’s going to keep stacking us with hotel work, he’s gonna have
to figure out how to either pay us better, or put more people in the trenches…”

“No shit,” Beth nodded. “Tonight was
not
worth ten freaking dollars an hour.
Twelve
, maybe
thirteen
would have been a bit more acceptable…”

“Preaching to the choir.”

We shut up and focused on wiping down soaked,
steaming drink trays as Arnold pushed through the swinging doors into the
kitchen area. With his usual air of controlled dignity, he quickly summoned
everyone’s attention and clasped his hands together.

“Excellent job, everybody. The event was
apparently a hit, and we can look forward to additional jobs here in the
future.”

Those of us in the room stifled a collective
groan. We
hated
 
hotel gigs.

“I hope you’ll all forgive me for the short
staff tonight. I had planned additional servers, but I needed to cut an
operations costs deal with hotel management. Since we performed to our typical
high standards, they’ve agreed to allow the morning staff to handle everything
from here... an arrangement that will extend to all future events here. You’re
all dismissed.”

A tired cheer rang out from us all. We had
never
left a gig early, and all of a
sudden Arnold went from incompetent villain to heralded hero.

The servers began flocking to notify everyone
else still in the banquet chamber. Before I could join them, Arnold threw me a
meaningful glance, and I reluctantly dragged myself to his side.

“Clara, we need to talk about your
performance for a moment,” my boss told me when all others were out of earshot.

“What’s the matter?” I tried to sound less
exhausted than I was.

“There’s the matter of your tardiness
tonight,” he replied coolly. “That, and I am led to believe that you engaged
were in, uh, misplaced banter with one of the guests?”

“I’m… not following, sir.”

Was he talking about that ass-hat
Marine?

Arnold sighed briefly. “I’m going to be frank
with you for a moment. I don’t know why you were late earlier, and quite
honestly, I don’t care. But it pains me when this happens…”

I braced myself.

Am I getting FIRED?

“I knew our crowd was going to be either
incredibly polite and restrained, or a bunch of wild animals. Military types
tend to go one way or the other. I have it on good authority that you comported
yourself with grace tonight, and I wanted to commend you for your
professionalism.”

“I’m afraid I’m still not following.”

What the hell is he talking
about?

“One of your guests, the, ahem,
other
tardy party,” Arnold clarified. “A
few members of his table apologized to me on his behalf, and another server
clarified that he had been engaging in harassment against you. I wanted to tell
you that I appreciate your care in representing us under that kind of attention.
I hate to put you people in a room with crude animals like him.”

“Oh. Why, thank you,” I replied awkwardly.
I’d already kind of moved past that, and didn’t honestly expect that it would
wind up in his ear.

“Try to not be late again, Clara,” he told me,
a sincere smile on his lips. “And thank you. I value your contributions to this
team, and I want you to know that you have premiere call for future events.
I’ll be adding you to the mailing list when I’m in my office tomorrow morning.”

The way Arnold handled things was to organize
catering or serving events, then blast out an email of the week’s openings
every Sunday morning. Premiere call was his phrase for the four or five servers
who were able to cherry-pick shifts in advance on Saturday, before the other
forty servers had any clue of the coming work opportunities.

This meant better shift opportunities, and as
much work as I could possibly want. It was a distinction for only the most
veteran or competent servers, neither of which I thought were particularly
applicable in my case.

“I… thank you, sir. I appreciate this.”

“Keep up the good work,” he nodded kindly.
“Anyway, that’s all. You’re dismissed.”

With a quick, respectful nod, I excused
myself from his presence.
What a weird
turn,
I thought to myself. But it wasn’t all that surprising that he’d
taken that attitude. Arnold could be a huge stickler for presentation and
rules, but he took care of his crew, and he didn’t tolerate mistreatment of his
staff.

Still, this freed me up for another hour, and
I decided to celebrate the occasion. While walking to my car, I thought of the
bar just down the street. I’d been a few times and liked it, even if they had
the occasional shitty bartender.

With a small grin on my face, I quickly
changed into a shirt and hoodie I’d brought along. Figuring the parking was
going to be awful, I left for the time being, strolling casually towards the
bar with a bounce in my step.

I had no idea that destiny awaited.

Chapter 3

After ditching the banquet once the food was
done, some of my Marine buddies briefly considered strolling to the nearby bar
for an after-party. When they all pussied out, I decided to go on without them,
prowling around and scoping out the women. I hadn’t been to the local spots in
this part of town before, so I was paying closer attention to the details than
my usual approach.

That was how I spotted her.

It was after my third or fourth round of pool
that I noticed Clara stood at the bar, dispassionately pushing strands of her
hair back behind her ear. Although she had traded in her waistcoat and bowtie
for a jacket and graphic tee, it was still unmistakably her.

The world smiles down on me
, I thought to myself quietly as
I casually sauntered that way. There was an open chair beside her, and I was
determined to make use of it. So much so that I glared down some greasy snake
of a guy who was just placing his hand on the back, eager to sit down beside
the little vixen.

Not today, motherfucker,
my eyes subtly communicated.
Without a word between us, he got the message and backed off, off to chase
other tail.

“Lousy service, huh?” I asked Clara, leaning
against the counter beside her.

When she glanced up at me, her beautiful eyes
were filled with surprise. That didn’t last long, as they quickly turned
defensive.

“Little bit,” she replied coolly.

I nodded towards the bar. “What are you
having? It’s on me.”

“I’m a big girl. I can order for myself.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I shrugged apathetically.
“Just being friendly.”

“Just like earlier, right?” she muttered,
rolling her eyes. When she turned back, she narrowed them, smiling sweetly at
me. “Why don’t you go be friendly
somewhere
else?
”

I smiled inwardly.
The game is on.

“Prickly little firecracker, aren’t you?” I
chuckled. “Sorry to say, I happen to like my women on the sharp side. I
thought
you could handle it.”

“Is that so.” Clara glanced over towards the
bartender again, growing visibly frustrated. When he clearly wasn’t noticing
her, she started looking around – choosing an escape route.

“Your name was
Clara
, right?”

The server sighed. “So you can remember
nametags, but you can’t pick up obvious social cues. Why don’t you get lost?
I’m way too tired to deal with your shit right now.”

“My shit, love?”

“Don’t call me
love
. I’m not your
love.
”

“It’s an English thing, love,” I grinned
cockily. “Can’t help it. You have your
Sir
and your
Madam
, and I have my
guv’nah
and my
love
.”

Clara gave an exasperated sigh. “This is just
my night. One long, miserable banquet, I get some good news and I get to leave
early… and now I’ve got this walking fucking stereotype, pulling from the
shittiest book of pick-up lines in print…”

I made eye contact with the bartender,
flashing him a look with my eyes. Between that and realizing the girl beside me
had been here for possibly ages, he immediately flew over.

“Whiskey neat, Jameson,” I commanded. “And
for the lady… long island iced tea.”

“Coming right up.”

Clara glanced up at me with mild amusement.
“How’d you know I liked long island iced teas?”

“Lucky guess,” I chuckled, withdrawing my
credit card. I handed it to the bartender between two fingers, keeping my eyes
on Clara.

“And your ID, miss?”

He took it, briefly scanning the card with
his eyes before returning it to her.

“Open tab?”

“Of course.”

As soon as he was out of earshot, I chuckled
and shook my head at her. “He’s a terrible bartender. That’s the fakest card
I’ve seen in a while.”

“Excuse me?” Clara muttered.

“Your ID card, it’s a fake. You’re
definitely
not twenty-one years old.
Hell, I don’t honestly think you’re a day over nineteen.”

“Flattering, but no, the card’s real.”

I reached out the same two fingers, wiggling
them briefly. “Show me.”

With a disgruntled sigh, Clara handed me her
ID card. Of course, I didn’t really think it was a forgery. I just wanted more
information on her. She was distracted, so I figured I could get away with the
request.

Clara Renee Campbell
, I observed, pretending to
fiddle with the edges of the card as I scanned her identification. I checked
out her address, noting that it probably wasn’t more than maybe ten minutes
from my rental house.
Convenient…

As I handed her the card back, my thumb slid
along the stony glare of her photo, and I smiled with validation.
Well, what do you know…?

“You’ve got a corner of this card slightly
peeling up, and there’s a subtle laser engraving on your name at the top,” I
chuckled. “I’ll be damned, it actually
is
a fake!”

“Say it a little louder for the people in the
back, why don’t you?” Clara snarled as she slipped it into her pocket.

She opened her mouth to follow that up, but
the bartender returned with our drinks. We gratefully accepted them, turning to
regard each other carefully.

“Cheers,” I grinned cheekily, clinking the
lip of my tumbler to that of her highball glass. It had been a bold move, but
it usually worked… and I was surprised to actually sniff out a fakery.
Ballsy girl,
I thought to myself.

“Cheers,” Clara disdainfully replied,
watching me coolly as she took a large sip from the straw. It was clear that
she was attempting to sum me up.

“Why don’t we get a table?” I asked,
motioning towards the various high-tops. “I’d like a little more room,
honestly.”

“I’m actually waiting on somebody,” Clara
chirped up. “Boyfriend’ll be here any minute.”

“Boyfriend,” I nodded thoughtfully.

“That’s right. Big guy. Bigger than you.”

“Is that so? Is he a former Marine, too?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Clara smiled. “He’s
way more handsome too. Doesn’t need to try and win me over with cheesy pick-up
lines or anything.”

I grinned playfully, taking another sip of my
iced whiskey. “Hey, I almost take personal offense to that one, love.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“And
I
told
you
that it’s a cultural thing,” I
reminded her. “It’s just how we greet beautiful women. Part of the deal.”

“You’re starting to lay it on thick.”

I began to retort, but it turned out that she
was half telling the truth. A moment later, another young lady about Clara’s
age strolled up to us, brushing long blond bangs back to expose expensive gold
earrings.

“Hiya, Clara. Who’s this guy?”

Oh good, here comes the cavalry.

“Just some guy from the Marines’ banquet I
had to work tonight. He’s kind of a total misogynist jackass. Where’ve you
been, Nat?”

“Sorry, girl! I was tied up with Jared for a
hot minute there!” She smiled unabashedly, leaving zero subtly in the
implication. Her smile faded as she turned to me. “You can go ahead and leave,
though. I’ll take it from here.”

“Classy,” I grinned. “Tell your friend you’re
late because you were riding dick
and
dismiss
me in the same burst of air? What
else
can you do with all that lung power?”

Nat,
as Clara had called her, planted
her hand on her hip and gave me that classic simmering bitch face that I knew
all too well.

“Look, Tiger, you’re barkin’ up the wrong
tree if you’re trying to bring my best friend home tonight. She’s already got
enough to worry about without some smarmy, arrogant fuck bothering her.”

Just to send the point home, she waved lazily
at me with a wrist in the
dismissed
motion.
“Now, piss off.”

I laughed, taking a swig of my whiskey. “I’m
sorry, I just thought we let our friends make their own decisions… Clara, if
you want me to go, just say the word.”

She turned to me with a sweet grin. “I’ve
told you to buzz off a few times now, remember?”

I grasped at my chest. “You’ve wounded me.”

“I’m sure you’ve experienced worse than that…
Marine.”

For a brief moment, I had a flashback to a
knife fight in the Afghani dust. Within seconds, I could practically taste the
dust in my throat, blinded by the hot, unforgiving sun as a foreign voice
shouted indecipherable taunts. I could feel the hard rubber of the hilt in my
hand, and knew what I had to do…

“Well, I
was
in combat zones for a few years, so that’s fairly accurate,” I replied
angrily. “Thank you for reminding me of my wonderful, feel-good time in the
bloody
, blistering desert. Now then,
ladies, if you’ll excuse me…”

I stepped away from them, swallowing the fury
that curled up in my throat like encroaching flames.
What was THAT?
I’d never really experienced any heavy flashbacks
like that before, and to do so
now
of
all times…?

Warm skin fleetingly brushed against my arm.
Turning on my heel, Clara was at my side, looking at me with eyes filled with
concern.

“Are you ok?”

I snapped out of it, shaking my head and
looking down at her sparkling eyes.

“Look, that might have been a bit far. I’m
really sorry… You just came off like a dick earlier tonight, and I was giving
it back... You’re not going to give up on me now, are you?”

“You’re gorgeous when you open up like this,
Clara.”

Clara blushed briefly, clearly caught
off-guard. I could see her friend back at the counter, ordering a drink and
looking over at us with confusion.

“I’m sorry… look, your name was Dalton,
right? It’s been a frustrating night, and you had me a little off center… I was
trying to forget you existed.”

“Well, I exist, and you got my name right,” I
answered mechanically, trying to gauge where this was going. “I’m Dalton
Cparlyle, of the 165th Steel Division in Afghanistan. Youngest member of the
Carlyle Family of Southern England.”

“Sounds very distinguished,” she smiled.
“Listen, would you like to get out of here, maybe? I
could
use some air.”

Ah, she’s remorseful now. Now she
feels like she needs to overcompensate.
I didn’t mind this particular trajectory
anymore.
Still, there’s the small matter
of…