Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Nikki glanced at him. “I’m good with surprises as long as it doesn’t have peanuts. I’m allergic,” she explained.
Another tidbit he now knew about her, including how much she enjoyed living.
“Surprising us sounds good to me, too,” Asher said.
Aayla nodded. “I’ll be back.”
Left alone, Nikki immediately turned toward him. “What’s in your drink?” she asked, her chatty curiosity showing through.
He glanced at the plastic holder for confirmation. “Gin, tequila, coconut rum, and coconut vodka.”
So he could imagine he was tasting Nikki as he drank, while smelling the coconut-scented lotion she’d obviously rubbed into her skin this morning.
“Mmm. That sounds delicious.” Her voice sounded unusually husky, and his cock stiffened in response.
Since he couldn’t do anything to draw attention to the issue in his lap, he opened the napkin and covered himself.
Nikki did the same, her reasons having more to do with good manners.
“Why aren’t you having a real drink?” he asked.
“I’m still taking Benadryl. I’m managing fine and don’t want to risk getting sleepy.”
He nodded. “Makes sense.”
His phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, noting it was a business associate who could wait. He tapped the ignore button and put the phone facedown on the table.
Which made him realize Nikki hadn’t looked at her cell the entire time they’d been in town. Even the triplets, guys not girls, couldn’t stay off their phones. On the plane, Nikki had mentioned wanting to avoid social media. Maybe that was still the case.
“Is everything okay at home?” he asked, knowing that was the easiest segue into the conversation.
She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “I’ll in check with Derek this afternoon.”
He wondered about friends and recalled Derek saying she didn’t trust people easily. He studied her profile as she looked over the ocean, a sudden quiet and sadness overtaking her, so unlike the bouncy, excited woman of this morning.
She must be lonely and her life emptier than he’d realized. “Do you want to talk about what happened to you?” he heard himself ask, taken off guard by his own words.
She turned to him. “I think it would help. You know, to get things off my chest. Or out of my head, really.”
He gave her his full attention, resting an elbow on the table and meeting her gaze. “Let’s have it, then.”
She sighed and was about to talk when Aayla silently put their drinks on the table and, as if sensing they were in a private conversation, stepped away.
Nikki took a sip of her frozen drink, her lips pursing around the straw. He closed his eyes for a brief second so he wouldn’t stare at that mouth and took a large swig of his beverage.
“I’m not even sure what happened or how,” she said. “I woke up the other morning to an influx of notifications and calls. I clicked on a link my agent sent me, and suddenly I was staring at nude pictures of me sleeping in my own bedroom.” Her cheeks flushed and she grabbed for her glass again, almost gulping, then she winced. “Ouch. Brain freeze.” She rubbed at her temple and groaned.
He waited until her facial expression told him the sensation passed. “Better?”
She nodded. “The fact that someone took the photos in my personal space is scary as hell. And before you ask, no. No boyfriends, no men, no one staying over in more than six months. No girlfriends, either.”
He refused to delve into why he liked that no men had been at her place in a long time. “Could the pictures be photoshopped?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I sleep nude.”
Well, that was a truth and a visual he might never get out of his head. “Shit.”
“That about sums it up. I don’t know why these things keep happening to me that end up in the press, creating scandals and embarrassing my parents.”
“Like the drugs at the airport?” he asked, deciding to go all in with this conversation.
How else could he get to know her better? To help her somehow? If Asher was nothing else, he was the protector in his family, the oldest of the original siblings he’d looked out for all their lives.
She nodded. “Like that. I don’t know how my father suppressed that story but he managed. I swear to you, I don’t do drugs. I didn’t have them on me. I didn’t put them in my suitcase.”
“I believe you.” At one time he hadn’t been sure. But this woman who wouldn’t drink if she was on Benadryl hadn’t been nor was she now using drugs. He’d underestimated her. Again.
“Thank you,” she said on a sigh of relief. She wrapped her hands around the rounded bottom of her glass. “And while I’m at it, I owe you an apology for my behavior that day. I was scared. They kept me in a hot room with no air conditioning. My parents, when I finally reached them, were screaming at me. Mostly my mother was.” She gestured as she spoke, getting worked up as she told the story.