Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“Stellllllla!” Kayleigh squeals, her face instantly crowding the frame. In the background, I see the blurry outline of Trevor, her hunky boyfriend/stepbrother, hunched over a bowl of ramen.
“Hey,” I say, “who let you two freaks have dinner unsupervised?”
“It’s after midnight here,” Mary Kate corrects, which doesn’t make any sense but I let it slide because MK is probably at her fiancé’s place and time doesn’t exist for the newly engaged. She looks radiant, even through the grainy video: pink gloss lips, a cozy sweatshirt that says “COZY,” and a halo of perfectly tousled hair. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“Thank you, I’m in mourning,” I say, raising my glass in mock salute. “My loving father just informed me that he doesn’t trust me to be home alone and has assigned me a professional babysitter.”
There’s a split-second of silence, then both girls erupt at once. “NO WAY,” Kayleigh says, and MK over her: “You’re twenty-two, not twelve!”
“Tell that to Thomas,” I say, sliding further down until I’m nearly supine on the sectional. “He thinks if left to my own devices I’ll either burn the place down or sell it for concert tickets.”
“Who’s the babysitter?” Kayleigh asks, eyes narrowing in mock suspicion. “Do I know him? Is it someone hot? Oh my god, tell me it’s someone hot.”
I sigh, milking it for drama. “If by ‘hot’ you mean ‘my dad’s stepbrother with a billionaire complex and enough testosterone to kill a small horse,’ then yes. It’s Hunter Roberts.”
Both girls go dead quiet. I watch their faces freeze, then explode into a flurry of open-mouthed shrieks.
“Are you SHITTING ME?” Mary Kate crows, shaking her phone so violently her image blurs into a seizure of pixels. “Hunter Roberts is going to be living with you? Like, in the same house?”
“Not living,” I say, a little too quickly. “Just staying for a week or two. Monitoring. Supervising.” I make air quotes around the word, nearly dropping my glass.
Kayleigh leans so close to her camera that I can see the individual dots of her freckles. “Stella. You are about to be under twenty-four-hour surveillance by the hottest man alive. I hope you’ve updated your nudes folder, because you need to bring your A-game.”
I laugh because actually, Kayleigh hooked up with Trevor that way - by accidentally sending her stepbrother saucy nudes of herself. But the sound comes out tight, almost clipped. “Trust me, I am well aware. Last time I saw him was at Thanksgiving and I literally walked into a door because I was too busy staring at his arms.”
Kayleigh’s voice drops to a conspiratorial hush. “Is he single? Like, officially? Because if you don’t climb him like a tree, I will be extremely disappointed.”
“Kayleigh!” I snort, but my cheeks go warm anyway. “He’s single, but also the world’s biggest manwhore. He dates models. Like, actual models, not the Instagram kind. His last girlfriend was on the cover of Italian Vogue.”
“Damn,” MK says, but she looks almost proud. “Respect.”
I swirl the champagne in my glass, watching the little vortex I create. “Honestly, he’s out of my league. He’s probably just going to ignore me and spend the entire time on Zoom meetings with his investors.”
Mary Kate isn’t having it. “Oh, come on. If anyone can seduce a CEO, it’s you. All you have to do is act mysterious and occasionally walk around in a towel.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I say, but the idea takes root in my brain and refuses to let go. My mind floods with images: Hunter in a crisp suit, Hunter at the kitchen counter with his sleeves rolled up, Hunter in nothing but a towel, water beading on his chest.
The three-way call devolves, as it always does, into a war of escalating dares. Kayleigh challenges me to “accidentally” leave my door open while changing. Mary Kate demands daily updates, preferably in the form of blurry surveillance shots. I keep my responses breezy, tossing out jokes and laughing along, but beneath it all I’m wound so tight my fingers ache.
Then my phone vibrates with a new notification: an unknown number, but I know instantly who it is.
Arriving Saturday evening. Do you need anything from town? – H
No signature. No emoji. Just “H,” as if the rest of the world’s Hunters had been wiped off the planet and only he remained.
I stare at the message for a full minute, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Then, without thinking, I press the phone flat against my chest and close my eyes. The contact of cold glass against skin makes me shiver.
“Stell? You there?” Kayleigh’s voice rings out, tinny and distorted, through the still air.
I peel the phone off my collarbone and say, “Yeah, sorry. Just making sure the WiFi isn’t dying. Saturday night, guys. The games begin Saturday night.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then Mary Kate says, “So you have Friday all to yourself. And that house all to yourself too.”