Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Her blue eyes locked on mine, and her shoulders lifted as she sucked in a breath. Maybe she’d think I meant lunch. Or that she’d have to agree to have dinner with me the next time she was in Munich.
She would be wrong.
If she got into my car, she’d give me permission to continue my pursuit of her. My brother had loved chasing fugitives, but for me it had always been women. It was so obviously clear she wanted me, so I didn’t understand why she resisted it, but it was more exciting this way.
She shook her head adamantly. “No, thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” The disappointment that ran through me was surprising. “Auf Wiedersehen.”
I took my umbrella and left her at the edge of the street, the rain pouring down on her. When I opened the limo door, I glanced back over to see her, glaring at me like the bastard I knew I was.
3
KARA
The cold rain drenched me, but it did nothing to cool the fire inside me. This was ruining my shoes. Shawn had left me with no umbrella and absolutely no choice.
When I slid into the dry back seat beside him, he didn’t bother to look up from his phone. I set my laptop bag between us as a buffer but doubted it would stop him. It probably wouldn’t even slow him down.
“You’re kind of an asshole,” I said.
“Didn’t your sister warn you?”
Yes, she had. He put his phone away, leaned forward, and told the driver we were ready. God, ready for what?
“Where are we going?” I asked in an even tone as the car pulled out into traffic.
“Lunch.”
Was that all I had agreed to? I relaxed into the soft leather of the seat and wiped the rain from my forehead. Yet an evil half-smile crept across his face, and it filled me with unwanted excitement.
“That isn’t the strings attached, is it?”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Whatever it was, I suspected I wasn’t going to like it . . . or that I might like it a little too much. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me.”
His evil smile widened into a full ear-to-ear grin. “But I do want you. Have I been unclear about that?”
God, no, he’d made that perfectly clear, whereas I was probably guilty of sending him mixed signals. I’d had six months to firmly shut him down, to close the door. So, why the hell hadn’t I?
Probably because I hadn’t been desired in what felt like forever. At the end of our marriage, Paul wouldn’t touch me. He’d barely even look at me. Now my sex-starved body hungered for Shawn like he was a four-course meal.
The longer he stared at me with lust in his eyes, the harder it became to breathe. All the air in the car vanished. Why was he like this? He had his pick of women, and, from what Laurel had told me, he’d tried them all. The last thing I wanted to be, I told myself, was Shawn Dunn’s plaything.
Even though the idea caused unexpected heat to flare inside me.
“We can’t,” I said, despising how breathless I sounded, or that he might have picked up on the longing I struggled to bury.
He was a cocky, arrogant piece of work, a God’s-gift-to-women type. He was sure to be selfish and controlling too. At least, that was my experience with a man like him, a man in power. And beneath it all, that was what I most disliked about Shawn. His personality was like Paul’s.
Only on steroids.
My hands rested in my lap, but they tensed when I replayed the moment my ex-husband had appeared in my office. He was only an elevator ride away, but Shawn, on the other side of town, had beaten him to check on me.
Only because Shawn wants something from you.
Paul didn’t come running because I wasn’t capable of giving him what he wanted. Maybe it had been petty to make him jealous, but I didn’t care.
“Lunch,” I reminded. “There’s a drive-thru a few blocks over.”
Shawn laughed. “How totally American.”
“Didn’t you grow up here? Aren’t you American?”
“I have dual citizenship because my father was American,” he said. “Ich bin Deutsch.” Then he said something else in German, a long sentence that sounded threatening.
“Did you just order my death?”
“What? No.”
“Sorry. German always sounds angry to me.”
He didn’t look offended. More German rolled from his lips and the warm desire in his eyes left little doubt that what he’d said was sexual in meaning. I treated him to a blank stare. And for the first time, I saw it. A momentary weakness in his armor. Words were weapons of seduction to him, and I’d just disarmed what I assumed was his biggest gun.
“I said that I happen to prefer American women, like the utterly gorgeous one sitting beside me.”