Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
He was two inches taller than Daniel at least. He was broader. He had the thighs of a rugby player. And if the Alcott blue eyes were startling with Daniel’s fair coloring, they were disconcerting with Ian’s dark.
Striking blue, the deep color of the Mediterranean.
I tore my gaze from him to see Portia’s face pinched in a way reminiscent of when she was studying for an exam she should have started studying for days earlier, and Daniel’s face was creeping with red, because his cover had just been blown.
Handsome, magnanimous younger brother was out the window.
He was the spare.
The real deal had just strolled into the joint, and damn, but if Ian Alcott didn’t make that brutally clear.
I’d seen pictures of him too, and his good looks were not lost on me.
However, the man in the flesh was so much better, I was suddenly finding it hard to breathe.
He was magnetic.
And he knew it.
“And the family expands,” he drawled, those preposterously beautiful, blue eyes pinning me to my seat. He stopped at my side. “I take it you’re Daphne.”
I put my spoon down and offered him my hand. “I am.”
He didn’t take my hand at first, not out of rudeness, he was caught up in the perusal of my cleavage.
And that was rude.
There was a slight smirk on his full lips when his fingers finally closed warm and tight around mine.
He also, I didn’t fail to note, had big hands, and he might have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but somewhere along the line, he’d earned callouses on his fingers.
“Pleasure,” he murmured, the word roaming my skin like a physical touch.
I pulled my hand from his and replied in a way it couldn’t be mistaken I didn’t mean, “Mutual, I’m sure.”
The smirk turned into a sexy sneer.
While I dealt with that, he looked beyond me.
“The famous Louella Fernsby,” he greeted Lou, moving her way.
She offered her hand.
He held it for a shorter period of time before he shrugged off his suit jacket and slung it with sheer and unmistakable in-your-face nonchalance on the back of the empty chair between Lou and me, a gesture that seemed like the smack in the face I was sure it was to his father. His tie was already gone, if he’d been wearing one, and his light-blue shirt was open at the tanned column of his throat. His blue suit was three pieces, the vest still in place, and the cut was superb and fashion forward.
He’d barely seated himself before the man was there with the soup tureen.
“Cream of brie,” Ian stated, helping himself. “Bonnie isn’t pulling any punches.”
“Dinner is at seven fifteen,” Richard asserted at this juncture.
The man with the tureen slunk away.
Ian shifted only his eyes to his father. “Thirty-seven years of that drilled into my brain, Dad, I didn’t forget.”
“It seems you did, since you’re late. You were to meet us for cocktails. Those start at six thirty on the dot,” Richard decreed.
“I texted I’d be late.”
“We hardly bring our phones to cocktails,” Richard sniffed.
“Perhaps you should,” Ian suggested. “You’d not waste needless emotion at me running late if you knew that was the case.”
It was then Lady Jane broke her long silence with a practiced, “Can we not?”
“Yes, can we not?” Daniel chimed in.
“Delighted to drop it,” Ian murmured as he bent to his soup and took his first spoonful.
Richard wasn’t delighted to do the same, I knew, when he declared, “We have guests.”
Ian looked to me. “My sincere apologies for my tardiness,” he said insincerely.
“You said you were going to drop it,” Daniel reminded him.
“I’m apologizing to our guests,” Ian retorted.
“Let’s move on,” Lady Jane requested.
“It’s insufferable,” Richard denied her.
“Jesus Christ,” Ian growled to his soup.
“It’s a simple request. Be in the Wine Room at six thirty, properly attired,” Richard demanded.
Yes.
I knew that suit jacket thing was a slap in the face.
Ian rested the side of his hand to the table and said to his father, “I’m here now.” He raised his dark brows. “Shall we eat?”
“Yes, let’s eat. I’m happy you could make it, darling,” Lady Jane put in.
“Thank you, Mum,” Ian said to her.
“I’m going to vomit,” Daniel declared.
“No need to be dramatic,” Richard chided.
Portia was staring at me with big eyes that shouted, Do something!
But I had no idea what to do.
Someone else might find this amusing or be diplomatic enough to smooth things over by offering an interesting conversational gambit.
That wasn’t me.
I detested confrontation, any I might be involved in, and even more, witnessing the same. I thought it was rude beyond bearing for anyone not to have enough control of their mouths to be able to leave it until they could discuss things in private.
And at that moment, I was painfully aware I not only didn’t have my car fob, I didn’t even know where my car was.