Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“Good idea. They’d look good with,” she says, stopping to stare at the ceiling of the car, before she fixes me with a smirk, “cute little shorts.”
Check. Checkmate.
Laughing softly, I shake my head, then lean back against the headrest as the driver maneuvers us onto a congested Ninth Avenue en route to the Village. “You win,” I say softly.
This admission covers…everything.
I’m not merely being gentlemanly. I want to be near her. I want to stay in her orbit, feel its pull.
“Or maybe we both win?” Her voice pitches up with hope. A desperate, pleading kind that tugs on my heart, which is already clay in her hands.
I wish we could both win. As the car slogs downtown, the last few weeks at Lucky 21 snap into shape.
She’s been vying for me.
Maybe the whole time.
Do I like that?
Yeah. So much.
It’s heady to be the object of this woman’s attention. I want to just enjoy the shine of it.
But I can’t. Instead, I shift gears with a nod toward her right ankle, the once pink scar faded to white now. “Nice scar,” I add.
“Glad you like it, Mr. James,” she says.
I like it so much I want to kiss it. I want to kiss her calf, the back of her knee, her thighs. But before I can linger on this dangerous hunger in my chest, on the rapid pace of my pulse, and what the hell to do with it all, Harlow tilts her head, studying me quizzically.
“What is it?” I ask, a little unnerved.
“Your shirt,” she says.
I glance down at it. A deep rich orange. Not a Halloween shade, but more like orange sapphire. I pluck at it with mild concern. “Something on it?”
“No. I just like it. You look good in rich colors. Jewel tones,” she says.
Warmth spreads through me. She’s sunshine and desire all at once. “Do I now?”
“Yes, you do, Bridger.”
I tear my gaze away, the knot in my chest tightening, the ache intensifying. Do I tell her I bought it a few weeks ago? The weekend before she started at Lucky 21? That when I held it up in the men’s store in the Village, the one I go to regularly, I imagined the times when she held up shirts, snapped pictures, sent them to me?
But I just choke out a strangled thank you.
Then I run my hands through my hair. Being near her is so fucking hard. I wish…
I just wish…
“Bridger,” she says, and that’s a new tone. It’s an I have something important to say tone.
“Yes, Harlow?” I hope I’m hiding the nerves in my voice. What the fuck am I even afraid of? Except…
Losing the thing that’s kept me centered.
My business.
My whole life I’ve wanted to tell stories. I never had the talent to write them on my own, or the interest in performing them. But I always had an eye. A sharp, astute eye for spotting a diamond in the rough.
After an unsteady childhood, moving around from city to city, following Mom’s tours, whiplashing from New York to Los Angeles, from Miami to Sacramento, no one but her and me, I don’t want to lose my anchor.
My stability.
My Lucky 21.
It feels like a part of my soul.
“I would never let on about us,” she says, answering my question in a calm but impassioned voice. “I won’t say a word at work. The only ones who know about…” she stops before she says us, but I hear it, and more so, I feel it, “are Layla and Ethan.”
I startle at the mention of her friends. “They know?”
Her lips twitch in a grin, but she seems to fight it off. “I told them. They know how I feel,” she begins, and my heart skitters too fast. I barely have time to recover from those three words flung at me—how I feel—since she continues. “They love me. Unconditionally. We don’t tell each other’s secrets. We protect each other. We always have. And you have to know, Bridger, you just have to. I would never tell my…” she stops, correcting to, “Him.”
“Okay,” I say, since I’m not even sure what to say next, at the mention of that…pronoun.
She inches closer, her hand moving near mine. My fingers ache to hold hers.
But she sets her hand in her lap. “You need to know something else,” she continues.
“What is it?”
“When I was thirteen, he told me to never say a word about the things he did. And I never did,” she says, her voice trembling with hurt. “I never said a thing to Mariana, or to Joan. Through all of high school and college, I kept it quiet like he asked me to. All of it. I don’t reveal secrets. I’ll protect you.”
Oh, god. Oh, fucking hell. She shouldn’t protect me. I should protect her. I should look out for this incredible woman. Unable to resist, I reach for her, curl a hand gently around the back of her neck, and whisper, “Come here.”