I stopped in my tracks. That didn’t sound good.

“I got you in here tonight, and I’m not getting any thanks for it?” The guy was angry and sounded like a prick.

The girl didn’t respond right away. I moved toward their voices and stopped outside the kitchen. I recognized the Jonathon guy the girl was talking to. He was a tennis instructor at Kerrington Country Club, which was owned by Woods’s family. He was also a notorious asshole and had fucked most of the cougars in town. If he was about to take advantage of this girl, then I was going to throw his ass out.

“I just . . . I didn’t know . . . I want to leave.” The way the girl’s timid voice cracked told me she was scared.

“Fuck that, bitch. I don’t care how damn hot your tits are. I’m not dealing with this shit. You can find the door by yourself,” Jonathon snarled.

I took a step toward the door as Jonathon stalked through it. Stupid little fuck.

I shoved him back into the kitchen with one hard push. He was going to apologize for being a dickhead before I threw him out. I doubted Rush even knew he was here. Jonathon wasn’t in our circle of friends. Some of the cougars he had slept with included a couple of our mothers. Not on our favorites list.

Getting his sorry ass to apologize would do him some good. Poor girl should have known better than to mess around with the help at the club. Maybe she’d learn a lesson after this.

“What the fuck?” he shouted, and then his eyes widened when he realized who I was. My dad sat on the board at the Kerrington Club, and I could have Jonathon fired with one word. He knew it.

“That’s what I was wondering, Jonathon. What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing at Finlay’s house, and why the fuck are you treating your date so badly? She too young for you? I know you prefer the over-forty crowd,” I said, taunting him. I wanted him gone. Just one wrong move, and that was all I needed to make sure he lost his job without feeling a shred of remorse.

“I didn’t . . . I mean, I was invited. I got an invite. This is just a girl whose aunt works at the club. She’s not anybody.”

Glancing over at the girl in question, I recognized her right away from her big brown eyes. She was Darla’s niece, Bethy. I’d seen her before. Hell, it was hard to miss her. Jonathon was right about her tits. They were noticeable. But her sweet face and innocent look had kept me from moving in on that. Besides, Darla was scary as hell. She handled hiring the employees at the club, and she’d been there forever.

“Bethy, right?” I asked her.

Her big eyes got even bigger before she nodded.

“This guy’s a douchebag, sweetheart. You shouldn’t trust him. Be careful who you let take you out.”

“You know her?” Jonathon asked incredulously, as if she were too beneath me to notice.

Stupid shit was getting on my last nerve. I turned my attention back to him. “Yeah. I know her aunt. The woman who hired your sorry ass. I wonder how she’d feel if she knew how poorly you were treating her niece?”

Jonathon’s fear was obvious. He had a good gig at the club, and he didn’t want to lose it.

“Leave. Don’t ever come back. Finlay finds out about this, he’ll do more than give you a warning. He’ll beat your sorry ass. He likes Darla. We all do. Stay the fuck away from her niece.”

Jonathon turned his attention to Bethy. The furious gleam in his eyes was directed at her. She shrank farther back, putting more distance between them until her back was pressed to the wall. Dickhead was getting off on scaring her.

Stepping between the two of them, I glared at Jonathon. “Leave. Now.”

I could tell it was taking everything he had to keep his mouth shut, but he did. I watched as he muttered a curse and turned to leave the kitchen.

“Make sure you don’t stop until you’re off this property,” I called out after him.

When he was gone, I turned back to Bethy. She was wringing her hands and looking nervous. I’d gotten rid of the prick. Why was she upset now?

“You good now?” I asked her.

She bit her bottom lip, then shrugged. “I, um, don’t know.”

She didn’t know? I couldn’t keep from grinning. She was pretty damn cute. But she was young. “Why don’t you know?” I asked. I enjoyed the way she talked. Her voice was husky but sweet.

She let out a small sigh and dropped her gaze to the floor. “He was my ride. I don’t live close by.”

As if I would let her get back into the car with that fucker. He had to be four years older than her. He was older than me. “I’ll give you a ride. I’m safe. Jonathon isn’t. Besides, he’s way too old for you. Dude would go to jail if he touched you.”

She lifted her eyes back up to look at me. “I’m almost seventeen,” she said, as if that were legal, although she was a little older than I expected. She was so expressive. I liked that. She didn’t try to bat her eyelashes or pucker her lips to look sexy. She was real. How long had it been since I’d been with a girl who was real? But then, she was young, and she’d been raised in a very different world from mine.

“Yeah, sweetheart. But he’s almost twenty. He shouldn’t have gone anywhere near you.”

She looked deflated, then nodded. Surely she hadn’t wanted to stay with him? Fuck that, what was Darla teaching this girl?

“I’m sorry I ran him off, but he wasn’t treating you right.”

Those eyes went wide again, and a dimple appeared in her cheek. “Oh, don’t apologize for that. He wanted me to go back to a bedroom and uh . . .” She trailed off. She didn’t need to explain. I was pretty sure of what he wanted to do back in a bedroom with her.