Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 92734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Did she? Because she was starting to wonder, even though she knew better. He wants the album back. Plain and simple. She’d have to be a damn fool to think he actually wanted her. “Pretend I don’t.”
Instead of jumping right on that, he snagged his beer and drank deep while he watched her with those unnerving blue eyes. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he saw more than she wanted to reveal. Carrigan took a sip of her own drink—perfect, as always—determined to wait him out and not speak again first.
The silence stretched out between them like a live thing, twisting and snapping and full of too many things best left unsaid. Why? Why did you do it? Why did you make me feel so much and then turn around and betray me in every way that counted? They were questions she’d never allow herself to ask because even the asking showed him that she cared in some small way. She didn’t. She looked away, doing her damnedest to ignore the way her hand shook when she brought her drink to her lips.
“Why did your father bring you back to the city?”
It was so unexpected, she almost answered truthfully. She caught herself at the last minute. “It doesn’t really matter.”
“It does.” He shifted, once again drawing her attention to his big thighs. Powerful thighs. Every part of him was built powerfully, like he was a gladiator from ancient times. She had no problem picturing him wielding a sword in an arena somewhere, cutting through his enemies with the same determined look on his face that he wore now. “Word has it that your father is arranging a marriage for you.”
“Gossip is bad for the soul,” she said in her most prim tone, even as her mind raced. She hadn’t expected the news to be kept secret—her father had no reason to hide his intentions for her—but hearing it from a man who was both an enemy and something more was disconcerting, to say the least. She’d only been back in town for three days—either James had an inside man, or her father had put together that damn list of his long before she drove back into Boston. A thought struck her, and she blurted out, “You aren’t thinking of throwing your hat into the ring, are you?”
His gaze sharpened on her face, searching for an answer she wasn’t sure she had. “It would almost be worth seeing the look on his face when I did.”
Her brain caught up to her mouth. Finally. She pressed her lips together, as if that would really do anything to help her maintain control. Control was one thing she’d always prided herself on having—if not over her life, then at least over herself. Being this close to James, even with a table between them, was making it hard to focus. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
Yes. He so would. And her father wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him, tentative truce or not. Carrigan stared at her drink, tilting it this way and that in the low light. After everything that happened, it shouldn’t concern her if James Halloran had a death wish. It should serve him right to take a bullet the same way her little brother had—even if he wasn’t the one who gave the order—but the thought of the world no longer holding him in it… it was a cold one. “Don’t do it.”
“I think I’m insulted. The thought of marrying me is enough to shut you down completely.”
“Funny, you don’t sound particularly insulted.” She had to get them off this subject—the sooner, the better—so she went on the offense. “If you’re hoping for a repeat of that night, you’re in for the disappointment of a lifetime. I’m never letting you touch me again.”
A strange smile pulled at the edges of his lips. “Liar.”
She jerked back, her heart beating too hard. He wasn’t flustered or worried or anything, except arrogant. “You’re an insufferable jackass.” Now was the time to get up and walk away, and put him in her rearview for good. But Carrigan had always had a nasty habit of playing with fire, and James was scorching hot.
“Guilty.” He stood and moved around the table, slow and purposeful, to sit next to her, entirely too close. She started to shift away, but his heavy arm dropped around her shoulder. The feeling of his bare skin against hers made her whole body clench up. Torn between wanting to bolt and wanting to crawl into his lap, she froze.
James had no such problem. He wound a lock of her hair around his finger. “You want me, lovely. You want me so bad you burn with it.”
With every turn of his finger, he brushed her bare shoulder with his knuckles, the gentle touch making things low in her stomach coil tighter and tighter. She dug her nails into her palms. She wasn’t weak and she wasn’t afraid, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to melt into a puddle at his feet just because he’d casually touched her. “You’re wrong.”