One of the Guys Read Free Page A

addition to the towing company.
    “I would be disappointed in you if you did.” Diego came closer and she held her breath. Dropping his voice, he said, “However, your whining and bitching is getting out of hand.”
    “Under the circumstances, I’m very calm.”
    “I’ve seen calm, and you’re not it. I’ve told you before I could fix you up and knock that bad attitude right out of you.”
    “First of all, I don’t have a bad attitude.” Except with him. He provoked the worst in her. “Second of all, I thought I made myself clear that you’re not my type.”
    “You’ve never tried my type.”
    “How do you know what I’ve tried?” Ronnie asked, knowing she entered dangerous waters with the direction of the conversation, but unable to stop the slide into the unknown.
    He sucked air between his teeth. “ Ay no , you’ve never been with a Cuban man, mami . That much I know. It will change your whole life. You know what they say, once you go Cuban, you never go back.” He chuckled to himself, rubbing a hand over his shirt, and she couldn’t help but notice his massive hands and broad chest.
    “That’s not the saying.”
    “It is now.” His voice was low when he spoke next. “I keep telling you, a little horizontal salsa will do you some good.”
    The air squeezed from her lungs and Ronnie’s chest tightened. She took quivering breath. “I promise you, that will never happen,” she said, in her coolest voice possible.
    The lids of his eyes lowered over his pupils as he did a lazy scan of her body. The brazen inspection made her feel uncomfortable in her own skin. A sensation, light and airy like a shadow, crept over her, compelling the hairs on her neck to stand on end.
    “Oh, mami , you don’t know what you’re missing.”
    “Not even if pigs fly and hell freezes over.” Icicles dripped from her voice.
    “So that’s a maybe?”
    She laughed a little. If there was one thing she could say about Diego, he was consistent. For over a year she’d had to deal with his lascivious smile and cavalier attitude. No matter how many times she shot him down, he came right back with a new line.
    “That’s a never.” She moved closer to him and stood on tiptoe to get in his face, their heads mere inches apart. She made her face into a mask of sweetness and lowered her voice to a seductive purr. “Stop parking your damn truck in the customer parking spaces or I’m calling the landlord.” She often threatened to sic the landlord on him but never actually had.
    He moaned and shivered, like a man who’d experienced something so exquisite he could barely stand it. “Oh Veronica, I love it when you talk dirty to me.”
    Diego dropped his eyes to her chest, but this time the brazen inspection didn’t only fill her with unease. Heat burned her cheeks, and her traitorous breasts tightened in excitement at the attention. Fortunately, he couldn’t see their reaction under the loose-fitting gray overalls.
    Ronnie curled her fingers into fists. There was no getting through to him. “Ugh!”
    She swung around and stormed away. Yanking open the door, she hurried inside her shop. The sound of his amused laughter only disappeared when the door finally closed behind her.

Chapter 3
    “ S he looks like she wants to kill you. Who was that?” The question came from Dave, the African-American driver Diego hired only days ago. He’d pulled up a few minutes before and walked toward Diego.
    “Ronnie Taylor. She runs the mechanic shop,” Diego answered.
    “She’s not a fan of yours,” his employee pointed out.
    “Seems that way,” Diego muttered.
    He couldn’t figure Ronnie out. He never suffered from a shortage of female company, and for years had been able to get just about any woman he wanted. That wasn’t arrogance. It was simply the truth.
    As a teen, he dated a congressman’s daughter, much to the dismay of her parents. His last relationship was with a wealthy older woman thirteen years his senior who