Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Oh, there was still physical discomfort, alright, but in the form of a stuffy tuxedo. And there were communication challenges, too, like explaining (repeatedly) that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, an amazing new investment opportunity, or to get anyone’s kid a job at Sterling Chase just because I happened to sit on the board of directors. My existence had been pared down to what was most important in this world: my bank balance and my connections… and it was the opposite of fun.
In fact, this gala was a fun wasteland, where everything was black and white, cold and flat, and nothing new or exciting ever happened.
As I stood in a small alcove off to the side of the MoMA’s elegant reception room, trying to coax my brain cells back to life after a mind-numbing conversation with Constance Baxter-Hicks about her topiary garden, her eligible, gay nephew Patrick, how much Patrick loved topiaries, and how desperately she’d like us to grow topiaries together, I decided I’d reached the upper limit of my boredom tolerance. Since I wasn’t leaving for Borneo, better to get some rest so I could focus on work in the morning.
I’d only taken a single step for the door when a man sailed across the polished floor directly in front of my hidden alcove, arms windmilling wildly. His face—snub-nosed and freckled and sort of weirdly… angelic—was frozen in terror until he managed to grab a support column like a drowning sailor grabbing a life preserver and swing himself into the shadows directly in front of me, where he landed on his feet.
Well. This was different.
“Good. Fucking. Fuck,” the man said succinctly and a bit breathlessly, bending over at the waist to catch his breath.
I resisted the sudden urge to laugh out loud. For someone who looked like he’d walked out of a Botticelli painting, he had a hell of a mouth on him… and the curve of the ass he was inadvertently displaying in his black pants wasn’t bad, either.
“Impressive dismount,” I said mildly, startling the angel into jumping nearly a foot. “But I’m afraid you’re going to need to find your own potted plant to hide behind. This one’s taken.”
He gasped and spun toward me, and his face morphed into an expression not unlike a disgruntled kitten—adorable and cranky.
“You saw nothing,” he informed me with a glare. “Now back off—uh…” He hesitated as he belatedly looked me up and down, then from shoulder to shoulder. His eyes widened, and he wet his lips, seemingly unconsciously. “…please?”
A knot of anticipation coiled in my gut.
A stray curl chose that precise moment to flop directly in the center of his forehead, and I bit my cheek, torn between amusement and a burning desire to pull the man against me—
Whoa. No. Bad Sebastian.
Clearly, I’d had too much champagne because I did not hook up with strangers I met at fundraising galas. In fact, I’d rarely hooked up with anyone at all recently, and for very good reason.
But even knowing all that, I couldn’t stop myself from returning the man’s up-down look with a slow, appreciative appraisal of my own. Shiny brown curls, doe eyes, plush lips, fair skin. His tux was a size too big, but I could still see hints of the toned body it hid. And for the first time in a while, I felt a pulse of desire and challenge that reminded me a lot of the feeling I got when I prepared to scuba dive into a Mexican cenote or paraglide off a Turkish mountain.
Yes, this evening had definitely gotten considerably more interesting.
Still staring at me, the man swallowed and made a strangled noise, then swallowed some more, like he was experiencing a powerful reaction as well. Either that or going into anaphylactic shock.
“You alright?” I asked, concerned.
“Me? Oh, ha! No. Yes. No.” He clapped a hand to his mouth and stared at me in horror, like the words had babbled out against his will.
Curiouser and curiouser.
My lips twitched. “Enlightening. Thank you. Blink twice if whatever you have is life-threatening, three times if it’s contagious, Mr.…” Belatedly, I glanced down to read his name tag and froze. “Wait. Sterling Chase?” I lifted an eyebrow. “You work there?”
That idea doused the flames of attraction in an instant.
Sterling Chase was my company. My baby.
It had begun as a way for me and my four closest friends to market the software we’d come up with our senior year at Yale—the Emergency Traffic Control software—but had grown into a billion-dollar startup incubator that helped other technology developers bring their big ideas to market. It was the place where I spent most of my time and all of my energy.
If this delectable stranger worked for Sterling Chase, that made him utterly off-limits. But… I couldn’t imagine how I could have failed to notice this man if he worked for me. He was nothing if not memorable.