Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
There was nothing that could be done about my wet skirt. All I could do was pray that it dried without too many wrinkles.
So I set to work for the next forty minutes before I could finally flip the sign to open.
Then I went behind the antique wood counter, sitting down, and sipping my tea as I chose one of my carefully curated playlists, sighing a bit as the sounds started to fill the store.
Bliss.
Pure bliss.
I was still settling into that sensation when I heard the delicate jingle of the door opening, making my gaze move in that direction.
I was already getting off the stool before my gaze landed on the customer.
And I damn near fell flat on my face.
Because… wow.
I mean, it wasn’t like attractive men were hard to come by in Balm Harbour. Especially in the on season when hundreds and thousands of tourists came from all over the world.
But there was just… something about this particular man.
First of all, he was in a full suit. All black. Which matched the tattoos I could see snaking across his neck, his hands, and chest. He even had a couple of tiny ones near his ear on his cheek.
But other than that, he was just insanely handsome. Dark hair, dark eyes, a sharp jaw, and a stern brow. Great bone structure.
It was more than all of that, though.
The man just had a certain… aura about him.
I couldn’t exactly explain it.
There was so much confidence, but not in that in-your-face, cocky, intolerable way. It was a quiet sort of confidence. The kind that came from somewhere deep and unshakable.
The kind I hadn’t ever experienced.
He seemed completely out of place in Balm Harbour, yet I found myself suddenly hoping he was thinking about moving in.
“Good morning!” I greeted, inwardly wincing at how overly enthusiastic my tone sounded. “Are you just browsing, or would you like some help?” I asked.
His head turned in my direction, almost seeming surprised to find me there, if the way his brows pinched was anything to go by.
That seemed weird. Of course there would be someone manning the shop if it was open.
His dark gaze moved over me, and I wasn’t sure I had ever been quite so self-conscious as I was right then.
“You’d think if your boss was going to make you work, he’d at least have had the sidewalks cleared for you,” he said, making me realize he was talking about my still-wet skirt.
“Oh, Dennis is, uhm, not here ,” I said.
“That’s unfortunate,” the man said, sighing a bit. “Since I am here to see him.”
“Oh, no. Was he expecting you?” I asked, glancing toward the back, wondering if he had possibly slipped in without me noticing. His office was back there, right alongside the unusually massive back room.
I remember being shocked when I first started working there to find that the back room was larger than the entire storefront itself. Especially considering that most of the arrangements were done in the front of the building. Sure, there were a lot of refrigerators back there, but there were a bunch of tables for seemingly no reason.
“Probably not,” the man admitted, looking around.
“Did you need something?” I asked, knowing my tone sounded just a little bit too hopeful, but I found I didn’t want him to just turn around and walk away.
“The store looks nice,” he said instead of answering. “Different from the last time I was here.”
It would be.
I’d slowly but surely made changes since I’d started. Not to trash my boss, but the place had been unorganized and stifling when I’d first been hired. There had been none of the charm of the rest of the stores on Main Street.
And I’d just made some small adjustments at first, a part of me terrified that Dennis would drop in, get angry, and fire me. But I almost never saw the man, so I got more and more comfortable rearranging things. I even repainted without permission, but with my own money.
When Dennis finally did show up one day, he had looked around with pinched brows, almost like he sensed that something was different, but he couldn’t place what. Meanwhile, it was all different. He’d never mentioned anything, though, so I was still working on little improvements to the shop.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a genuine smile tug at my lips. I was proud of the place. It never ceased to make a warm feeling spread through me when someone noticed all my hard work.
“Are you the new store manager?” he asked.
“I, ah, I work here. We really don’t have managers, per se. I work here most days, and then Rayna works here the other two days.”
Damn.
I wasn’t supposed to offer up the information about us working alone, was I? Vega would sigh at me for being that careless.