Traded by Lisa Suzanne

CHAPTER 3

Four Months Later

I glance in my mirror, and the black truck is right on my tail.

Again.

Look, dude, we’re all just trying to get wherever it is we’re going, and I can’t change the fate of the stoplights.

It turns green, and I hesitate just an extra second. Maybe it’s me being a little on the passive aggressive side since clearly Black Truck is in a hurry, but he can relax.

He doesn’t relax, though.

Before I take my foot off the brake pedal, he honks his horn.

Okay, buddy. You want to play? Let’s play.

I ignore the sage advice from my father warning me of idiots on the road. I forget about that whole road rage thing he talked about when I was sixteen, and instead I hold up my middle finger so Black Truck can see it clearly though the back window of my little Kia.

My heart pounds wildly in my chest as adrenaline rushes through me.

This isn’t really me—flipping the bird to strangers on the road like this, but it’s my last day at my job and maybe I’m a little on the defensive side this morning.

I finally ease my foot off the brake and start moving. There’s enough traffic this early in the morning that he can’t exactly dart into the next lane to pass me, so he’s stuck behind me.

I move a little slower than I normally would. There are cars up ahead anyway, so it’s not like we’re going far. I have plenty of time, and I can afford to drive extra cautiously in all this big traffic. Or, you know, to drive so as to piss off the asshole behind me.

I guess a space big enough for his enormous truck opens in the right lane, because he threads that needle and darts over.

Seriously. Who needs a truck that big on these busy little suburban roads?

He revs his engine to dart past me, and I look over at him just as he passes by. His windows are tinted, but I can still see him flip the bird back to me as he stares me down...or at least I assume he’s staring me down, but I can’t really tell since he’s wearing a hat and sunglasses.

I flip my middle finger for the second time as my heart pounds.

Asshole.

Whatever. I’m almost to my destination anyway. I can see my left turn lane a few hundred feet away.

He glides in front of me, nearly clipping the front of my car as he cuts me off, and then he eases into the turn lane.

My turn lane.

My stomach does a little flip as I wonder just for a beat if he’s going to the same Dunkin’ Donuts I’m going to.

And now he’s going to think I’m following him because he’s going the same way I am. I study all the features of what must be some special edition Dodge truck. It has black trim and black accents everywhere, including the Ram logo across the back tailgate and blacked out windows all around.

I follow at a safe distance behind him through the parking lot of the mini-mall all the way toward the Dunkin’ located on the far end, my eyes focused the entire way on the license plate. JD5.

He finally comes to a stop in the space immediately in front of the store, and I’m relegated to the back row.

Now I’m just pissed. I should draw in a calming breath and let it roll off me, but I’m not in the mood for this shit this morning.

Instead, I grab my purse from the passenger seat and toss my door open.

The door to the store is just closing behind the man driving JD5, and I stalk across the parking lot as my blood boils.

A loud ding greets me as I enter the store, and I spot the back of his head as he orders. Fury rages inside me as I pin my eyes on his tall, lean frame. We’re the only two customers in here, and I catch all of “two large black coffees” before the rage inside me boils over.

“What kind of dick drives like that to get one person ahead at a Dunkin’ Donuts?” I yell at the man in front of me. My hands are shaking and my knees are about to give out and what am I doing? What if this guy is dangerous? It’s not like the teenager behind the counter is going to jump between us to save me. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I continue despite the thoughts in my mind telling me not to.

He turns slowly around, and I catch the smirk on full lips and the sculpted cheekbones and the perfectly straight nose before my eyes move up to meet his. His are a dark, stormy blue and quite familiar.

I freeze.

They’re eyes I used to fantasize about, but they turned into eyes I couldn’t stand looking at. They’re eyes that bring the immediate sting of Halloween night last year right back to me as if I’m back in the moment when he told me he had a girlfriend. They’re eyes that cause conflicting emotions to plow through me as I relive the most mortifying moment of my life paired with one of the steamiest, sexiest, hottest ones.

My blood boils over even more. I thought he was just some random asshole tailgating me, but this new twist is even worse. He’s not just some random asshole.

He’s a random celebrity asshole who once threw me out of a private suite at a nightclub after he screwed me. All those awful feelings of being dismissed from his suite rise to the surface and feel just as fresh as the night it happened.

His eyes light with a bit of recognition as he tilts his head, but he sort of looks like he can’t quite place me. “Some people have places to be and don’t have all day to fuck around behind the wheel driving their Kia like my grandmother would,” he says.

“Mr. Dalton, will there be anything else?” the cashier behind the counter asks.

He turns back to the counter and orders some donuts. “Add whatever this young lady orders to my tab.” He turns toward me and winks with his smirk firmly back in place.

Young lady? Excuse me, but I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman.

I let out a very unladylike snort. “Uh, that won’t be necessary,” I say to the cashier. “I don’t need some asshole paying for me.”

“Nonsense,” he says, unfazed by my insult. “It’s the least I can do.”

I roll my eyes, and the poor high school kid behind the counter looks monumentally confused but ultimately gives this win to the jerk rather than to me.

Of course he does.

Because if there’s anything I know about Jack Dalton, it’s that he’s a champion. He always wins.

He helps carry everything I ordered to the car (which, for the record, was only supposed to be one coffee and a dozen donuts), and I slide into the driver’s seat and start the car. I roll down my window as he turns to leave, and I snarl at him a little. “Go Aces,” I hiss, and he tilts his head again as if he recalls some distant memory.

Those were the same words I said to him when we parted the first time, most likely in the same snarl.

He laughs and shakes his head as I peel out of the parking lot.

And that’s how I ended up with four dozen donuts and enough carafes of coffees to satisfy the entire staff at Kennedy’s school on a Thursday morning.