“See? I’m right, aren’t I? If you weren’t on the show, you’d be staying in some non-descript, boring hotel. Now, you get to enjoy the charm of Cashmere Cove from the inside.”
“Whatever. Do your best not to touch me any more, alright?”
“No can do. We’re back to square one here. I have to at least pretend that I’m into you. And I’m a touchy-feely kind of guy when I’m into a woman.”
“Gag me.” Mallory pretends to wretch.
I laugh. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”
I come to a stop at the top of the hill that leads to the oldest neighborhoods in Cashmere Cove. I have to let some pedestrians cross, and when I try to drive forward, I kill the engine.
“Whoops.” I start the car and try again. We lurch forward and then slide back.
Mallory takes a deep breath and rubs the back of her head where it rammed into the headrest when the car stalled.
“Bradley.” She’s using her coach voice now, the same one that got me out of my funk in the pantry at the mansion. “Use the emergency brake.”
I immediately comply. It’s a reflex at this point. “Now what?
She unbuckles her seatbelt. “Now you’re going to let me drive.”
She’s walking around the hood of the car before I can argue. She opens my door and taps her foot.
“I can drive,” I protest.
She glances at the hill behind us and back at me, arching both eyebrows. “I don’t think you can, actually.”
I scowl at her. “Fine. But only because I’m a gentleman, and you clearly want a turn behind the wheel.”
I unhook my seatbelt, and we trade spots. Mallory settles in, and I take her abandoned passenger seat.
“Oh, you are a pretty thing, aren’t you?” she purrs to the car, running her hands over the steering wheel.
“What do I have to do to get you to talk to me like that?”
“That’ll never happen.” She expertly disengages the parking brake and eases us over the hill on the first try. She aims a cocky grin in my direction. “Don’t feel bad, Bradley. Some of us are better drivers than others.”
“I’m a great driver!”
“On the golf course? I’d give you a C+ there. On the road? An F-.”
“A C+?!”
She laughs, and the low, genuine sound of it does something weird to my heart, like it turned over itself with a forceful flip flop, and now the rhythm is slightly changed.
It stutters once more when Mal looks over at me with her green eyes wide and dancing. She bobs her head to the right. “Your parents’ house is that way, you said?”
I nod.
“But it looks like there’s open road that way?” She tips her chin to the left.
I nod again, and I know what she’s going to do before she does it.
She turns to the left, and I shake my head, but I’m not going to argue with her.
Sitting shotgun while Mallory takes control with a grin on her face isn’t the worst place to be. In fact, now that I think about it, I feel more relaxed than I have since I sunk the putt to secure the win in South Carolina a week ago. Ever since then, my world has been a whirlwind of contract negotiations, and production meetings, and wardrobe checks, and then came the women, and we all know how I handled them on night one. Now, though, with Mallory, my chest is lighter, and I’m enjoying myself. It was a good call to keep her around.
After a couple minutes of Mallory handling the winding road in the Corvette like she was born behind the wheel, I reluctantly remind her that we’re going to be late.
