“He’s the one that owns The Last Call, right?”

“Yup. And then there’s Alyssa. She’s engaged to my brother Brody, who is Hunter’s twin.”

“And he’s the one that spent some time in prison?” I ask.

Casey’s eyebrows rise in question, so I supply her before she can ask. “Kyle told me. I guess Andrea filled him in on the whole group.”

“Did she tell him that Brody went away for a crime he didn’t commit?”

Now it’s my turn for my eyebrows to rise. “No. Guess she didn’t tell him that piece of info.”

Casey shrugs her shoulders. “It’s not something that people know outside of our family and small group of friends. Andrea probably thought that was too personal to share.”

I don’t tell her that Andrea apparently shared a bit of personal information about Casey… like her penchant for wealthy men. It’s not like Andrea told Kyle anything sordid… just that Casey only dated the rich elite, that she was surprised she agreed to have dinner with me, and that she never had a long-term relationship, seeming to just bounce from guy to guy. I sort of drew my own conclusions from that.

“Then there’s Savannah, who used to be my roommate, who is with Gavin, who is this really big-time author, and well, you know Andrea. That’s my group of girls,” Casey says vaguely.

I want to ask her more about Brody, and I definitely want to hear more about her friends because I’d bet my Harley they’re nothing like Casey since they’re all in committed relationships. But I don’t, because I want to ask her about something else. I promised not to ask her anything more about Jeff, but I’m insanely curious about why she targets just rich men.

And I know that the best way to get information is to share information.

“I have a daughter,” I tell her abruptly.

I’m completely blown away when Casey’s eyes soften even further, and she gets the sweetest smile on her face that pops out two dimples. “You do?” she asks with delighted surprise.

I grin and nod. “Her name’s Zoey and she just turned fourteen. Her mom—my ex-wife—relocated to Raleigh a few months ago. That’s the reason I rode out here with Kyle… to see Zoey.”

Casey snickers and picks up her coffee cup. She takes a sip and looks at me over the rim with sparkling eyes.

“What?” I ask, curious as to what has amused her so much.

She chuckles and sets the cup down. Leaning her crossed forearms on the table, she says, “It’s just… you and I have been very intimate with each other and I don’t know anything other than your name and that you’re from Wyoming, and now, of course, that you have a daughter named Zoey.”

I lean back in the booth and stretch my legs out, caging Casey’s legs between my own. Spreading my arms wide, I say, “I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters… how old are you? I mean, you have a fourteen-year-old daughter.”

“Thirty-three,” I tell her. “Had Zoey when I was nineteen.”

“And what do you do for a living?”

“Currently, I’m a motorcycle mechanic in between jobs. Prior to that, I was in the Marine Corps and prior to that, I worked on a cattle ranch.”

“Wow,” Casey says with surprise. “A biker, a Marine, and a cowboy. You like have all the hot guy tropes covered.”

Chuckling, I move my legs in closer together so I’m touching hers. It’s not much, but for some unexplained reason, I want the physical connection with her. “I think you’re romanticizing it just a bit. As a mechanic, I perpetually have grease under my fingernails, as a Marine in the desert, I sometimes went days without showering, and as a ranch hand, I smelled like cow shit at the end of the day.”

“Yeah,” she huffs, “but you like have all those tattoos and muscles. I could definitely overlook the other stuff.”

We both laugh, and I can see most of the tension has lifted from her shoulders. We enjoy a moment of comfortable silence, sipping at our coffees.

“What about you?” I finally ask. “What’s your story?”

Casey shrugs her shoulders and lowers her gaze. “Not much to tell. I just turned twenty-six, born and raised here in the Outer Banks. I tried to make a living as a real estate agent but I pretty much suck at that, so now I bartend. Oh, and I flunked out of college after a year, which still pains my mother.”

“I don’t buy it,” I tell her with a shake of my head.

“Buy what?”

“You flunked out of college. You’re too smart.”

She nods in understanding with her lips quirked. “Let me clarify… I flunked out of college because I was rebelling. Too much partying and not enough studying.”

“Rebelling? You?” I ask sarcastically.

Casey laughs, dips her face, and traces the edge of her coffee cup with her finger. When she raises her head, her eyes are sad and serious. “I had a rough senior year in high school… with Brody getting sent to prison and… well, just some other stuff. I sort of went a little crazy when I got out of this town. It was my chance to be someone different. To act without consequences.”

“To bury your troubles in alcohol,” I guess.

She nods with a sheepish grin. “And pot. Lots and lots of pot.”

“Hey… most kids that age go a little crazy. Who you are today isn’t who you were back then.”

Casey’s lips flatten as if I said something distasteful, but she nods her head in agreement. “That’s for sure.”

The waitress comes to our table with a pot and tops off our coffees. While Casey doctors hers up with a ton of cream and sugar, I take the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

“Kyle mentioned something interesting to me,” I edge into the conversation. “He said that Andrea was surprised you showed interest in me. Am I so different than other men you’ve gone out with?”

Casey’s eyes snap to mine. She stares at me shrewdly for a minute, and then narrows her eyes. “I’m guessing if Andrea told Kyle that, who in turn passed that on to you, then she also told Kyle about the type of man I normally go out with, right?”

Fuck. Busted.

Before I can even open my mouth to admit that, she continues. “I know Andrea must have said something because of what you said to me earlier. You said I used men and tossed them away like yesterday’s garbage.”

I groan internally, because I really had not meant to say it that way. I was still pissed that she was able to walk away so easily after that incredible night we shared.

“Casey, Andrea didn’t—”

She holds a hand up and waves my words away impatiently. “I love Andrea. She’s my friend. I know she never would have said anything that cast me in a derogatory light. So what I’m guessing is she told Kyle the truth. That I don’t do relationships. I casually date, and I only date wealthy men. And of those men that I keep around for more than a few dates, I only do so because they understand my boundaries. Now, whether that is what Kyle in turn relayed to you is another matter, but there you have it… I don’t go out with men like you. Period. End of story.”

I stare at Casey a moment, trying to figure out if she’s pissed that she’s been the subject of conversation or if she’s just matter-of-factly telling me the way things are. Regardless, I ask her instead, “What do you mean ‘men like me’?”

She smirks and waves her hand toward me. “You know… men like you.”

“No, I don’t know what that means,” I tell her as I straighten up in the booth and pull my legs back. Leaning forward on my elbows, I murmur, “Enlighten me.”

“Dangerous,” she says simply. “You’re dangerous.”

“I’m a teddy bear,” I tell her.

“You’re real,” she counters. “You’re real, down to earth, and there isn’t a pretentious bone in your body. That makes you dangerous.”

I shake my head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

Casey smiles at me almost piteously, and I’m surprised she doesn’t give me a condescending pat on my head. “I know on the face it looks like I just seek out rich men, and maybe you think that’s so because I like to live a glamorous life and I like pretty things. But the truth is… I seek out men that are vain, narcissistic, or self-absorbed. It just so happens that many of those types of men are that way because of what money has done to them. It makes them entitled and it corrupts. It controls their lives and makes them feel more important that what they really are. It gives them the power to hurt people… to destroy. It takes away their capacity to truly care.”