Scarlet Desires (Sample)

Chapter Three

He was in a very neat shirt which upper buttons were unbuttoned. His sleeves were uncuffed and rolled up his forearms under his elbows and the ends of his shirt was still tucked into the waistband of his pants. He had cobalt blue eyes that had a lot of authority in them and she wondered where his suit was. He looked more like a man who had had such a tough day at work and needed to down a couple of bottles of liquors and get dead drunk on such a Friday night.

"Hi." He said, no emotion in his voice. It was just formal and flat.

"Excuse me but I reached the wine first." She said instead to him not replying his greeting.

"Well, I reached the two first..." His voice was calm, cool and strangely felt effortlessly laced with authority. He glanced at the bottles of wine and continued. "...and since it's just two left in the rack, you could as well buy another wine."

"Really?" She asked already getting irritated with his egocentric attitude. He had so much authority in his voice and countenance like he was instructing a cook or a maid and he hated men like him with passion. He had no rights whatsoever to try being bossy over her and she intended on putting him in his place. "Well..." She began and took one of the bottles off the shelf, already securing hers. "Since it's just two left, you obviously can't have both but I'll definitely have mine." She gently shook the bottle in the air in front of him so he could see. "You could just as well count yourself lucky for getting the last on the shelf but if this doesn't satisfy you, you could as well help yourself to the others..." She swept a hand towards the shelves of the other bottles of assorted wines. "...I'm certain men like you have good taste buds for just about anything that looks like wine with a lot of alcohol to get you stoned no matter the brand." She smirked.

He shoved his hands into his pants pocket and scrutinized her for a second or two then said in that same voice of cool authority. "Unfortunately, I want this particular one. Just give me both and I'll buy you any wine you want no matter the price, the bill is on me."

That angered her now. Just who the hell did he think he was? She hated men like him that thought they could just easily sweep a woman off her feet by tossing around a wad of cash and in his state, he didn't even look like he could stay true to his word... Literally afford what she would need. "Keep your damn offer to yourself!" She retorted. "I reached the wine first and if you are not cool with it, wait till they get new supplies, excuse me!" She placed the wine in her cart and wheeled it away to continue her shopping without a backward glance while he only watched her go without putting up a fight for the wine.

He glanced at the last wine left on the shelf, pulled his hands out of his pocket, glanced at his wristwatch, glanced at the wine again, grabbed it by the neck and walked away. After twenty minutes or more, Rosalie wheeled her cart to the counter and waited for an old lady in front of her to finish having her stuffs calculated and bagged then she wheeled hers forward and Gabe suddenly beamed when he saw her and his eyes seemed to enlarge behind his lenses. "You done, huh?"

"I sure can't spend all night here, can I?" Rosalie chuckled as he began to calculate and bag her stuffs too.

"I wouldn't mind." He said. "Would be fun...you and I." He said the last three words with a nervous chuckle, looking hopeful like a school boy in love with his teacher.

Rosalie only offered him a smile and quickly tried to divert her attention to something else. Anything. Her eyes roamed the mall as she lightly drummed her fingers on the counter top. The mall was busy with several shopping customers as it always was most Friday nights and her eyes however shifted to the muted TV up on the wall behind the counter but not directly behind Gabe. A female correspondent was talking about a recent murder with several police cruisers and ambulances behind her and men busy working in the background.