Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Or at least give me a cruel, mocking smile and revoke any chance I ever had at involving Home Shepherd in this scheme.
Instead, he just looks at me like he’s never seen me before.
Which is alarming, because the earlier scowl returns, gaining in harshness like a gathering storm.
I’ve never seen a man look so broody before—which is saying something when I grew up with the broodiest single dad in Seattle.
Then his hand starts moving.
Oh, here we go.
Security and the hounds are coming in three, two, one...
He presses a button on his intercom. “Miss Cho, can you come in here, please?”
This is it.
At least he’s using Hannah to send me into exile nicely for having the audacity to suggest we travel into the wild after otters.
I meet his gaze, daring him to lay into me one last time, but instead he raises his gaze as his EA walks into the room.
“Miss Lancaster has just suggested we travel to Olympia this weekend to see the sea otters in their natural habitat,” he says, utterly impassively.
It hits me that I’m holding my breath.
Because I have no flipping idea what he’s really thinking.
“Well, hopefully. Like I said, they’re pretty rare, and sightings are never guaranteed,” I correct in a small voice. “But if we get lucky, we might spot something.”
His gaze lands on me for a burning second before it shifts back to Miss Cho.
“Yes, you’ve made the concept quite clear. Hannah?”
Oh, no.
He’s using her first name?
It must be serious.
“Definitely not.” She answers a question he never spoke out loud. “I’m visiting family in Portland this weekend, Mr. Foster.”
“All weekend?” His forbidding brows descend lower over his eyes.
“I’m afraid so.” She doesn’t sound like she’s that upset by it. “You’ll have to count me out on this one. However, I can make your travel arrangements. I’ll make sure the lab releases a prototype to you personally.”
Wait. What.
Foster groans.
I stare at both of them in disbelief.
“Does that mean... you’re coming?”
“Yes, dammit,” he mutters. “Although frankly, I have no good reason why I’m actually considering it.”
“Like otters aren’t enough?”
The joke fails catastrophically.
But then something resembling a microscopic smile tugs at his lips.
“Otters,” he agrees. His eyes linger on my face. We’ve been in the office so long the sun’s light has finally dimmed and the automatic lights are brightening, painting his face in softer white-orange hues.
Meaning, I can see every gritty detail.
From my research, I know he’s forty-two. That means he’s seventeen years my senior, but he doesn’t look like it.
To say he’s aged well is like calling Taylor Swift a singer. He’s still young and rough in all the right places. More like a mountain carved gracefully by time than a man who drinks his weight in green juice every morning, running from his own mortality at the crack of dawn and choking down a fifty-supplement cocktail.
His jaw is firm and sharp.
There’s only the smallest hint of salt and pepper in his hair—and I don’t think he dyes it—a distinguished badge of age.
And although there are faint lines around his eyes and mouth and across his forehead, they’re barely noticeable in this light.
Maybe it’s the lighting, though.
It’s got to be the reason.
The only reason why I notice how lush his mouth is, too. His lips look like they could lay down the law or soothe any woman to sleep with tender kisses, and it’s horribly easy to imagine him doing both.
Especially when he’s not scowling.
Um... he’s not scowling now.
My stomach doesn’t quite flip over, but it lurches.
I don’t even hear him at first as he dismisses Hannah and looks at me, his eyes slits as he leans back in his chair.
“One question for you, Miss Lancaster.”
“Yes?”
He blinks and his face goes impassive. “How well can you handle a kayak?”
7
A Little Restraint (Shepherd)
I must be out of my fucking mind.
Absolutely certifiable.
Taking a novice kayaker on the long route from Olympia city limits into the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula?
Stupid.
And doing it alone?
Alone? With a beautiful woman?
They should have me institutionalized.
If Hannah Cho were here, she’d have done the smart, mature thing and booked us a boat ride to Olympia or a seaplane into the boonies.
Anything but this.
Which is why I’m still wishing she was available for this excursion.
Then I wouldn’t be here, too distracted by the thought of a rigorous summer paddle with a young woman who has no business shaking me the hell up like she does.
But here I am, standing on this pebbly beach, waiting for Destiny and regretting every life decision I’ve ever made since Hannah first said the words 'Young Influencers.'
Christ Almighty.
If this leaks out to the wrong people—the Shepherd Foster tromping around the wild with a gorgeous young woman and a glorified intern—I’ll be ruined.
Dumas couldn’t have torpedoed me better in her wildest revenge dreams.
Hell, she’ll probably up her attacks and slander out of pure seething jealousy now.