Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
“Thank you.”
He lets go of the ladder, steps closer to me, and reaches toward the necklace. Briefly, he runs a finger across the little bow. My skin buzzes from his seconds-long touch, then his words, “So pretty.” Then, he heads to the door. “Should we continue on our tour?”
I take a moment to get my bearings before I say yes, then follow him downstairs to a gym, and also a home theater where Mac and some of the kids will hang out during the luncheon party. He gestures to an empty red bowl that says popcorn on it, sitting on the sideboard.
“That’s from last night,” he says, swooping it up and dropping it in the kitchen with Mac as she sorts out popcorn spices. Then, he guides me up the stairs, and I drink in the view for miles as we go, the Golden Gate Bridge and the endless ocean spilling over the horizon. We reach the bedroom level, and he shows me Mac’s room with its unmade bed that he clearly didn’t insist she make this morning. There’s also a huge, messy desk covered with cameras and lenses. Photoshop is open on the computer screen.
His home office is next on the tour. Antique maps cover the walls. “Do you collect?”
“I do,” he says.
“Why?”
“I like knowing what the world was.”
“To know what it can be?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“That’s very you,” I say. “Especially with your new businesses, like the energy ones.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. You like to understand the future. To help shape it.”
“I hope so. And I hope to shape it for the best.”
“And you like to understand people,” I say.
He holds my gaze for a beat. “I do.”
That warmth I felt earlier spreads. He understood how frazzled and hurt I was that time in his office when I spilled glitter Christmas dicks on him. He understood me the next time when I felt guilty over not telling my sister the full truth. He understood me at dinner when we talked about snow and winter and songs.
And he’s trying so damn hard to make sure we pull off this fake romance. Brady hardly tried at all with our real relationship. My own father barely tried to fix things with my mother after cheating on her over and over, and she still gave him chance after chance. And sure, some of my past boyfriends tried, but not to the extent of this man.
Wilder? He shows up every single time for every single thing. It’s admirable. It’s attractive. My throat tightens briefly with emotions, but I swallow them down as we leave.
I face a new battle when we reach his room next. The suite is three times the size of my tiny place and fifty million times nicer, with warm cream walls, soft carpeting, and floor-to-ceiling windows. I swear I try not to ooh and aah the whole time. The bed, low to the ground on a blond wood platform, looks like it’s made of sweet dreams, with soft gray, blue, and white pillows. The windows show off the whole city and the ocean beyond. His bed is neatly made, and this feels entirely him too.
I’m about to say that when a loud thud echoes from the corner of the room. I spin around, alarmed. “What was that?”
Wilder drags a hand through his hair. “Penguin,” he says.
“Penguin?”
A second later, a large tuxedo cat saunters out of the closet, stretches luxuriously, then sashays over to Wilder. The cat has white gloves, a black body, and a half-face, mostly black, but with a white mouth. “You have a cat,” I say, stunned.
“The rumors are true.”
I spin around, swatting his arm. “Stop it! You never even dropped a hint that you had a cat. You didn’t mention it at dinner or in your office dos and don’ts.”
“I guess there was so much else we covered, it slipped my mind,” he says, but there’s something else in his eyes—the hint of an excuse? A cover-up? I’m not sure.
“Well, you ordered me to come early so we could pull this off.” I park my hands on my hips. “Now I learn you’ve been hiding a cat?” A cat who’s…a little in love with Wilder. The feline is rubbing against his leg. Purring. “Is your cat marking you?”
With amused resignation, he bends to pick up the critter. “She was supposed to be Mac’s. A few years ago, she wanted to adopt a cat, so I took her to Little Friends, and she picked this cat. Then, once we returned home, the cat…well, she picked me.”
As if on cue, Penguin rubs her head against his chest. A laugh bursts from me. “Your cat is obsessed with you.”
A smile teases his lips like he can’t quite believe he’s enchanted this feline. But judging from the rumble of her purr, he definitely has. He scratches her head. “Yes. She is. So there you go. I have a cat. Mac named her,” he says, then sets the fluffball on the bed. She flops down, sticking a leg up in the air and bathing for all the world to see.