Read Online Sweet on You by Kate Perry - Free Book Online Page A

I seem to have a thing for surly women." He dropped some bills on the counter and then stood. "Ready?"
    She nodded, surprisingly reluctant to have lunch end. She shoved away the feeling, knowing it was residual from the bike ride.
    Which was just as excellent on the way home.

Chapter Ten
     
     
    "Look at this." Lola held up a package. "It talks, it flashes, and it shoots."
    Daniela looked up from the doll she held in her hands. "A talking and flashing toy gun?"
    "Can you believe it?" She put it back on the shelf. "When I was a kid, the fanciest toy on the market was Barbie's Corvette."
    "I had Barbie's Corvette, but my brother used to steal it and have his action figures cruise in it."
    "I played with blocks. Do they even have blocks anymore?"
    "If they do, they sparkle and make phone calls now." Winking at her friend, Daniela dropped the doll in her cart and rolled down the aisle.
    Lola strolled alongside her, hands in the pockets of her hoodie. "You never told me what we're doing here."
    "We're buying things." Shopping with a friend was always more fun, and doing it before they headed to Eve's house for girls' night seemed like as good a time as any.
    "I see that. But who are we buying for? Your nieces and nephews?"
    "I don't have any." She tried to picture Tony with children. At one time, he'd have made a great father, but now she could only see him telling his kids not to get their sticky fingers on his five thousand dollar suit. Of course, she may have been a little biased.
    The jerk.
    "So...?" Lola waited expectantly.
    "It's just Christmas presents for a couple kids I know." A slight exaggeration, because she didn't really know Jimmy and his sister, but whatever. She was responsible for them. "Does this place have clothing?"
    "I think so, but it's all last season," Lola joked, pointing toward the other side of the children's store.
    Although calling it a "store" was grossly understated. It was more of a warehouse, full of anything you could ever need to raise a kid.
    "Thank goodness my almost-stepdaughter Madison is pretty much a teenager," Lola said as they walked through the store. "I won't have to deal with all this stuff."
    "No, you just have to deal with sex and drugs." She remembered what it was like being a teenager and shuddered. "I don't envy you."
    "Madison's a great kid." A brightness filled Lola's eyes. "She's got a good head on her shoulders."
    "You love her," Daniela said, intrigued. She wondered how she'd feel if Nico came with a child. For all she knew, he could have one that she didn't know about. After all, it wasn't as though they really knew each other.
    "You're frowning." Lola nudged her.
    "I was thinking about someone."
    "A man, by the look of it."
    "He's all man," she said, her heart beating harder as she remembered how he'd held her. "But I just met him. I don't know anything about him."
    "I bet you know more about him than you give yourself credit for." She held her hand out. "Not that there aren't details that you don't know, but details are only that and not super important. Unless he's a criminal or something."
    "He's not a serial killer." At Lola's questioning look, she shrugged. "I asked."
    Her friend laughed. "What else do you know about him?"
    "He owns the world, and he has an empire. He's respected and feared by his colleagues. Very smart and witty." She stopped and studied a stuffed giraffe before moving on. "He's from the wrong side of the tracks, even though he wears custom-made suits now. I get the sense he's kind of a playboy too. He certainly knows his way around a woman's body."
    "Fascinating." Nodding absently, Lola stared unseeingly before her. "He sounds like a mix of all the hero archetypes. The chief, the bad boy, the professor, the playboy..."
    Daniela smiled at her friend. "I've read all your books, and I still have no idea what you mean."
    Lola grinned apologetically. "When you create characters, it helps to have an underlying base guide for him. There are eight basic