Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 231(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Chapter Four
Ethan Dalton is sex in a suit, and I don’t remember any single man in my lifetime that has ever affected me quite like this one. I’m aware of how he looks, how he moves, with both grace and arrogance, and the way the sea breeze mixes with his cologne and creates something more alluring than any scent should be.
Sitting across from him, I watch him sip from his whiskey glass, and I’m acutely aware of the bob of his thickly muscled neck, and the fact that I drank from that glass, his glass, where his mouth presently rests. He finishes his sip, his tongue licking over his bottom lip, and it’s impossible for me to ignore the idea of him licking me. I swallow hard, and he offers me his glass again. I draw in a breath and exhale with a lift of my hand, “No, thank you.”
His eyes light with amusement. “Why? Are you driving?”
“No,” I say and I find myself laughing softly, the sound echoing the erotic hum in the air between us, darn near suffocating in its existence. “But walking can be pretty risky if you’re me,” I add. “It’s the truth. I could never walk a runway wearing one of my designs. I’d trip. It’s just the ‘me’ curse.”
Now, he laughs, and the masculine rumble vibrates through me, and I think I might melt right here in my chair. He’s not for me, I whisper in my mind. There are connections between him and me that assure this is a reality. I know this, I do, so why am I still sitting here?
Because he’s like a drug and I can’t help myself, I answer silently.
“Did you always want to be a designer?” he asks, as if he really cares who I am, which he will never truly know. I won’t let him.
But I find myself replying easily, comfortable with him in ways I would not expect to be, considering his money and power.
“Since I was a little kid obsessed with Barbie. I actually started drafting designs at age ten. My mother was so proud. She showed them to the world, and I swear she would have sent out public announcements when I got into design school had I let her.”
“Does she think Moore’s is the right move for you?”
“Why?” I ask, and not because I’m avoiding the topic of my mother, though on some level I am. Her death cuts deeply. I’m not sure if it’s smart for this man to know that part of me. “Is there something wrong with Moore’s?”
“It depends on what you want. Store brands are not Prada. Which do you want to become?”
“Prada, of course.”
“Then you don’t want this offer.”
“What if I don’t get another offer?”
“You won’t if you take this one. But do the work, get them to offer, and then that becomes part of your résumé. They offered. You walked away.”
But I might not get another offer, I repeat in my head. Prada, though, I think. I want to be Prada.
He sets his glass down, and the pressure of my career decision is quite overwhelming, as is the pressure to get up and walk away from him. Liquid courage in the form of the strong, expensive stuff calls to me. I pick up his glass and down what is left, smoke burning down my throat. He arches a brow. I set the glass down. “You really are brutally honest. You just made what I thought was a dream come true feel like nothing.”
He leans in closer, close enough that I can see now that there are little flecks of blue in his green eyes. “I’m only saying what you need to hear. If you listen to what I just told you, I saved your dream. I didn’t destroy it.”
He flags the waiter and lifts his glass. “Bring us the bottle.”
My head buzzes a bit from the booze, and I say, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I already feel what I just drank.”
“I’ll walk you to your room,” he says, his voice a low, rough promise of sultry sin and, oh, so much pleasure. “If you ask me to.”
Heat crashes over us like the waves on the seashore followed by a rush of fire I feel in every part of me. It seems obvious what he suggests, but he’s pretty solidly out of my league. And yet, still I play the game.
“I might not ask,” I say, aware that something is happening between me and this man, aware that I’m losing my focus on a bigger picture, seduced by the man in the moment.
His eyes light with what I now believe he sees as a challenge, no matter how unintended. “Then I better enjoy every moment I get with you.”
Chapter Five
The waiter sets a bottle of whiskey on the table and an extra glass filled with ice. “Can I pour for you?” he asks.