Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
The Scot gave me a short nod. “Sure.”
I sat down on the sofa and rummaged in my backpack, looking for my phone, pulling things out to get to it. “Ah-hah.” My fingers curled around my cell, dragging it out. Ramsay had crossed the room to sit on the couch beside me and as I reached to return items to my backpack, I noted his raised eyebrow and focused attention.
On my paperback.
Heat hit my cheeks. But I had nothing to be embarrassed about, I reminded myself. I slid the book into my backpack unhurriedly.
“Was that … three men and a woman?”
Now I flushed for a whole different reason. “Yup.”
“And … she’s a nanny? And they’re her neighbors?”
Hearing the strangled laughter in his voice, I settled down on the couch with all the primness I could muster. “Uh-huh. It’s called Why Choose Romance.” I stared directly into his eyes. “Any other questions?”
Those pale eyes twinkled, but he shook his head.
Tapping on my phone screen, ignoring my damp palms, I brought up the mood boards Cammie and I were working from. I didn’t care what he thought about my reading preferences, Mr. I Own Every Literary Classic Under the Sun and Probably Read the Eclogues of Virgil for Fun.
And yet my brain wanted to zoom off on a tangent, wondering what he thought about me. If he thought I was merely some dumb, nepo baby who came here on a whim with my trespassing tendencies and kinky romance novels.
Why did I care? I didn’t know this guy from Adam. He was clearly older than me and totally not my type with his gruff, short sentences and unkempt appearance.
I’d always liked my men classically handsome and charming.
Then why did it feel like every inch of my skin was abuzz with awareness?
I had to force myself not to suck in a breath when Ramsay leaned closer to see my phone. Oh, of course, he smelled amazing too. A spicy, woodsy scent either from shower wash or shampoo (it couldn’t be cologne—he didn’t cross me as the cologne type), mingled with sea air. I fought the strange and sudden urge to nuzzle my face in his corded throat.
What the hell kind of instant attraction crap was this?
3. Ramsay
She smelled like she looked.
Expensive.
Sexy.
I shifted in my seat, focusing on the phone in her manicured hand and frowned at her perfect nails that matched the color of her silly wee SUV. Nails that would no doubt feel fucking amazing raking down my back. I threw out the image and opined gruffly, “If you’re going to get your hands dirty, you should clip those off.”
Tierney Silver glanced up from the device in her hand, her hazel eyes wide. “What?”
“Your nails.”
“Cut my nails?” she asked, as if I’d suggested she shave her head. “No way. I can help without cutting my nails.” Her frown was disapproving as she turned back to her phone, muttering under her breath about yetis or some such nonsense.
I studied her profile as she swiped on her screen looking, I supposed, for the mood board she and Cammie had come up with.
The photos online of Tierney didn’t do her justice.
She photographed as a pretty, well-turned-out young woman but nothing extraordinary. Not some raging beauty. But if anything my world travels had taught me was that beauty was subjective. Some people just had a magnetism in real life that didn’t come through in a photograph. Something untenable and indescribable that made you unable to look away. That made them the most gorgeous person you’d ever met in your damn life.
Tierney Silver was that. And I hadn’t expected it from the spoiled heiress. Even in jeans, a Henley, hiking boots, with her blond hair tied back in a ponytail, she was stunning. One of those women who would look good in a black plastic rubbish bag.
Up close I could see a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. There was a larger freckle right on the corner of her lush top lip. I stared at it as she muttered to herself about the mood board.
What the fuck was happening here?
I wrenched my gaze away, annoyed at myself for acting as doe-eyed as the young lads on the island. They were all twittering like fools over the American hotel heiress.
Even if I didn’t have a rule against sleeping with women from the island, I wouldn’t touch Tierney Silver. Spoiled, rich, pampered twenty-seven-year-olds didn’t really do it for me. At least not usually.
Though it was clear she was something more. My previous career had taught me to see beyond what people presented to the world.
There was a dark grief in Tierney’s hazel eyes.
And secrets.
I was a bloodhound when it came to secrets. Could smell them from miles away. Once it had been my business to ferret out secrets. But this … her …