Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 89883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“Ha! The muffin man. I get it. Clever. You’re a girl, though.”
“I am. A girl. Obviously. A muffin . . . girl.” And obviously I’m the opposite of clever.
“A very pretty one too.”
My face is on fire now. “Um. Thanks? Thank you? I mean, I feel like a hot freaking mess, but . . .”
The guy slips his hands into his pockets. He’s trying to flirt, and I’m just too weird and tightly wound to make it work.
“I was watching a lot of Shrek at the time,” I try.
“Shrek?”
“Yeah. The Drury Lane/muffin man reference? There was that talking gingerbread man in the movie. The one who hangs out with the three blind mice? Anyway, Lord Farquaad tortures him to get information on Shrek and Fiona and he asks him if he knows the muffin man—”
“Kid movies aren’t really my thing.”
I really am going to die. Instead, I keep smiling. “Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, I get that. I haven’t watched that movie in . . .” I blow out a breath. “Forever. No time, you know? I do listen to a lot of podcasts while I work, though.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“True crime, mostly. Murder is my favorite.”
“Hmm.”
The silence returns with a vengeance. The guy jingles some change in his pocket and looks at the floor. The elevator dings and he looks back up, clearly relieved the ride is over.
Murder is my favorite? Who the hell says that, least of all to someone they don’t know?
The guy holds open the door again, and again I thank him. He walks ahead of me, disappearing onto Atlas & Teton’s massive trading floor.
I stop for a second after I make my way onto the floor, crouching to pretend to tie my shoe when really I just look at the carpet and beg it to open up and swallow me whole.
Around me, phones ring. A man laughs. A woman buzzes by me, her pretty and no doubt expensive high heels making the carpet sigh.
My eyes ache. I am tired. I seriously question my decision to strike out on my own last year at twenty-two. Most of my classmates became bankers or went to law school. That seemed unappealing at the time, but maybe they were onto something.
I blink, hard, and look up in an attempt to gather the strength I need to get on my feet.
But instead of landing on the ceiling, my gaze catches on a man just off to my left. I’m low to the ground, so my eyes move upward as I look. And keep looking, suddenly voracious for distraction.
The guy is wearing immaculate brown Oxfords. He’s got long legs that are covered by crisply ironed trousers—none of the casual khaki stuff my brother wears to work now. The trousers sit low on his hips, the imprint of his phone visible in the front right pocket. His white shirt is tucked into his smooth brown belt, revealing the long, flat plane of his stomach and chest. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He’s got forearms for days, ripped and veiny and delicious.
Forget cute.
This guy is hot.
The kind of hot that makes me forget the burn in my eyes and the throb of embarrassment in my chest.
The kind of hot that pulls me to my feet. My eyes rake over his sinewy neck and dark blond stubble that’s almost-but-not-quite a beard. Don’t get me started on those lips. Lips that are full and set in a familiar line. Then there’s the dimple in his chin—
Oh.
Oh boy.
It’s Brooks.
Of course it is. Even on a trading floor that seats hundreds of people, my hungry, horny gaze somehow finds him first.
My crush is standing at a printer, head turned toward the woman standing beside him. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I can tell by the way the woman angles her body toward him that she’s into it. Into him.
He leans the flat of his fist on a nearby table and tilts his hips so he’s leaning toward her too, towering over her petite frame. The movement is smoothly subtle, but the woman bites her lip, clearly aware of his interest. He says something and she laughs. Not too loud, not too much. It’s an appropriate laugh, one that barely skirts flirty territory.
The printer is spitting out pages at a fast clip—too fast—and suddenly they’re flying everywhere. Brooks straightens and catches a few pages before they end up in the woman’s face. She laughs again, slightly flirtier, and I don’t miss the way Brooks’s elbow grazes her stomach as he bends down to grab the rest of the pages. Rising, he shuffles them into a stack and hands them to her, leaning in to murmur something in her ear as he pulls away.
Her smile deepens. Her cheeks and eyes are bright. Glancing around, she offers him the corner of a page. He slides the pencil from behind his ear and jots something down.