Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure. Completely disinterested in interaction or conversation, she spun around, going back to her onions, tears, and thoughts. Except she wasn’t that lucky. Belle followed her, the door swinging in and out on its hinges, in and out again after Belle released it.
    “He’s hot. Like, wow. Hot. Have you ever—”
    “No,” Marissa interrupted, trying to keep her tone even, but her foul mood was worsening after that encounter. She shouldn’t take it out on Belle, though. “He’s probably a cheater, just like every other...”
    Marissa didn’t feel the need to finish her sentence. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The whole time she was griping, Belle was gushing. Normally Belle would stop to tell her that not all men were like her ex. That some men were good. But not today. Today she was too busy gushing.
    Gushing about how hot this new guy was. Gushing about his pecs, his ass, his eyes, his arms, his face—everything. Marissa fought the impulse to tell her to stifle it.
    In the dining room, the phone rang.
    And again.
    And again.
    It didn’t look like Belle was going to answer it.
    Marissa wiped her hands on the towel, ran to the dining room and picked up the cordless phone. “Two West Two.”
    “Ms. Sanchez?”
    Him. His voice. Finn. She recognized his voice.
    She coughed. Then she couldn’t stop. What the hell? What was wrong with her? And why was he calling her? She croaked out a “Yes?”
    “I just wanted to apologize for upsetting you this morning. Not my intent, at all.”
    Why would he call her to apologize? Why not simply tell her when he came back to get dessert, as he’d told Belle he was going to do?
    Maybe he didn’t want Belle to know he was talking to her? Player. Cheater. Douche. Marissa dismissed him from her mind. “You’re fine.” Okay, not the thing she’d meant to say, not the way it could be interpreted. “What I meant was, it’s fine. No problem.”
    There was silence on the phone. He either wasn’t speaking, or he’d hung up, or they’d been disconnected.
    Either way, she shrugged, and hung up the phone.
    Marissa tripped over a backpack on the floor in front of the counter. She picked it up, then dropped it behind the counter next to the cash register and headed back to the kitchen.
    “I kind of like him.” Belle was droning on—still, as if Marissa hadn’t just left the room.
    As if the ass hadn’t just called Marissa and tried to talk to her. As if he hadn’t just tried to sweet-talk her.
    As if.
    Marissa fought to keep the bitterness she felt at his duplicity from showing. She forced a smile to her face. “I couldn’t tell.” Marissa tried to widen the smile, to make it reach her eyes, to keep from snapping what she wanted to say, which was something along the lines of, I’m losing my restaurant. I’m losing everything. And you’re drooling over some guy? A douche of a guy, actually. Really?
    Okay, she needed an attitude adjustment. She really did. It wasn’t Belle’s fault. It really wasn’t that guy’s fault, either. And Marissa seemed to be affected by him as much as Belle was. Okay, maybe not as much, but a whole lot more than she wanted to be. She shoved the onions into the reach-in, threw the cutting board in the sink, and made her way back to the dining room.
    If he showed up to have dessert with Belle, she’d buy his dessert and let Belle sit down and visit with him. They could call it a date. She’d surprise Belle with that nice gesture when he came.
    Ugh. She tried to quell a spark of jealousy.
    If, the voice of doubt said. If he shows, because you know that men don’t follow through. But Dad always did, she argued with the voice. The one that said everything she never wanted to hear. She hated that voice.

Chapter 8
    S he’d hung up on him. She did. It shouldn’t matter. But yet...
    Hunger roared in Finn’s stomach, demanding satisfaction. He ignored it and went back to the hotel room, where at least the temperature would be tolerable