Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 129944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“Isabelle, put your hair up. This isn’t a fashion show, chérie. It’s unsanitary,” Mrs. Arnaud ordered in a motherly tone. “Please take this tray to Mr. Horn. He’s in his office.” She looked straight at me. I was stunned for a moment, felt the pulse on the side of my neck skip a beat.
“I’ll do it,” Isabelle interjected, blocking me easily with her voluptuous figure. She bound her hair in a ponytail so quickly it almost made me laugh. Thank God for aggressive women. I had dodged a bullet…or something similarly unpleasant. I nodded, my pulse returning to normal.
“She can do it,” I said, cheerfully.
“Mr. Horn asked for Vera.”
Huh?? This was a troubling turn of events. Isabelle’s frosty gray eyes launched poison arrows. Not exactly how I meant to begin with her, but I couldn’t worry about that now––I had meaner dragons to slay. “Yes, of course, madame,” I replied, silencing my mind.
“Bon, hurry, before his frappe gets warm. It upsets him.” Heaven forbid. I pursed my lips, afraid the words would slip out. Taking the tray from her, I practically ran out of the kitchen. I would’ve rather been drawn and quartered than give him a reason to complain.
When I reached his office door, uninvited erotic images of him flashed before my eyes. I shook my head to be rid of them, shoving those wicked thoughts back into the dark recesses of my mind, then took a deep breath and knocked.
“Enter.” His deep, raspy voice echoed off the walls.
Once inside, the first thing that struck me was that the room was of a much smaller scale than the others. I hadn’t seen it yet, had been rather studiously avoiding it like the plague. On the wall behind me were flat screen televisions of various sizes. The low sound of news and financial channels hummed in the background. A wide, mid-century desk sat in front of a small fireplace. On either side of it, windows stretched from floor to ceiling. The sunlight pouring through them obscured my vision. All I could discern was the imposing silhouette seated behind the desk. I could feel him watching me.
“You plan on standing there all day?” That loose American accent broke through the paralysis. I had to give him credit, it was hard to spark my temper but he managed it without any effort. I stepped forward without making eye contact. After everything I had been through, I had somehow managed to survive with my pride intact. I wasn’t about to give him the opportunity to trample it for his personal amusement. I placed the tray on his desk and turned to leave.
“Where are you going?”
Turning slowly, I forced myself to meet his gaze for the first time in full daylight. Mistake. Big mistake. The beginnings of a slow flush prickled my collarbone. To stop its progress, I frantically searched for an image to distract myself with. Dead kittens? Dead kittens. Dead kittens!
“Did you say something?” he asked. The dismissive look on his face didn’t fool me. This was a battle of wills and I wasn’t about to be intimidated so easily.
“No.” And then a staring match ensued. It would’ve been funny had I been on the outside looking in, had his contempt for me not equaled my attraction to him.
My senses converged acutely, bringing every aspect of him in high definition. To call him handsome would be like describing the Mona Lisa as a painting of a lady. His face was a perfect balance of symmetry and proportion with enough whimsy thrown in to make him completely unique. Those thick, spiky lashes were darker than his hair and excessive on a man. They set off the color of his almond shaped eyes, amber needled with green closer to the iris. High cheekbones balanced his aristocratic, thoroughly masculine nose. His mouth was wide, not overly full. His jaw firm. And it all ended with a soft punctuation mark on his chin.
But it was so much more than the sum of the spectacular parts. What made him truly breath-catching beautiful lived beneath the surface. A smoldering pit of volatile emotion, an intense fire that blazed no matter how much he tried to cover it up. It was difficult to hold his gaze in the face of all that intensity.
His dark blonde hair was a bit too long. It curled up at his ears and collar and fell over his eye. When he brushed it away, I swallowed––and hated myself just a little bit more for not being able to control myself; I had a sick feeling that he had noticed. You don’t become the head of one of the oldest banks in Switzerland at thirty-two years of age by being only a little perceptive. My eyes drifted over his long fingers, on the tiny white scars on the back of his hand, as he picked up the drink off the silver tray. He absentmindedly tapped his index finger on a leather bound book. Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap, tap, tap. I could just make out the title… Love in the Time of Cholera.