Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Why don’t we get started?”
Eve’s expression was neutral, but I could still see the defiance in her irises. She wouldn’t be quelled by the fact that she had to work with me.
She took the seat.
Good girl.
Maybe having a partner wouldn’t be so bad after all.
2
Eve
Well, fuck.
Whitt was supposed to be gone all summer. I hadn’t seen him in our mutual friend group since he’d left for Seattle, and I refused to show any signs that I was shaken by his appearance.
I couldn’t be shaken by anything. Because unlike Mr. Wright, I needed this job. I needed it more than life itself. This was it. This was my break. After barely treading water, holding my head up as I inhaled the murky water of poverty, I was going to get ahead of this.
So, I couldn’t leave.
Not even with Whitton Wright standing in front of me. My pulse beat a tattoo against my throat just at the sight of him. His voice was the same that it had always been—deep and throaty. Every single word causing my neurons to snap. And it was more than just his voice. It was the scent of him wrapping around me. A mix of citrus and spice that aroused ideas of him stepping straight out of a shower. It was his strong, freshly shaven jawline and too-blue eyes. The lines of his body so sharp that it might as well have been a Renaissance sculpture. His large hands curling around the edge of the desk. His typically short, dark hair had grown out just long enough to fall forward into his eyes as he looked down at me through his dark lashes.
He was exactly as delectable as I’d last seen him. The last time things had gone completely wrong between us.
“So…when did you get back?”
“Yesterday.” He leaned forward on the desk across from me.
The soft leather chair was cold against my ass as I sank into the cushion. I crossed my legs at the knee, my skirt riding up my thigh. His eyes flickered to the bare skin, a trace of the bottom of my dream catcher tattoo visible before I tugged the material over the ink.
He jerked his eyes back to mine. My throat closed at the heat that passed between us. The heat that had never evaporated in all these months.
My palms traced the arms of the chair. “Did you have a good summer?”
“It was…wet,” he said.
I choked on that word out of his mouth. His eyes moved to my lips, and desire shot through those baby-blues. I definitely hadn’t meant to vocalize that reaction.
I cleared my throat, hoping to salvage this conversation. “I thought you missed Seattle.”
He was silent for a moment too long as he visibly collected himself before taking a seat across from me. “I thought I did, too. Turns out, I just missed my mom.”
“Is she going to move down here?”
He chuckled. “No. She’s lived there her entire life, and she loves her work. But she was glad to have me and Harley there.”
“I bet.”
I had no idea what that would be like. My family was…complicated. To say the least. They were the real reason that I couldn’t seem to catch a break. It was hard to get ahead financially when half of every paycheck went home to make sure my little sister had a roof over her head and food in her stomach.
Real estate had seemed like a way to make some easy money. I’d only been doing it for eighteen months at the insistence of my now ex-boyfriend. When our relationship ended, my entire life went up in smoke. He’d fired me from his company, blacklisted my ass, and kicked me out of the apartment he had me in. No wonder I still wasn’t ready for a relationship. I couldn’t afford to lose everything again.
I’d finally managed to find another company that would take me in but building clientele had been a slow and painful slog. Even a year later, I had to take every new client that came my way. Steady work was hard to come by.
I wasn’t about to blow it with the Wrights.
“So, this job,” Whitt said. He rifled through a file on his desk. “I assume Jordan filled you in on it?”
“He hired me. We’re surveying a new build in Midland.”
“Yes. Working with Dorset & King.”
“Ah, the Kings. Midland royalty,” I mused.
“You know them?” His eyes found mine over the top of the file.
“Sure. Everyone knows them. They’re a big presence in the city. Plus, I was in the same year as Nate King.”
I managed to keep my face neutral when I mentioned him. Not that Nate and I had ever been together, but his girlfriends sure thought we had been. Apparently, girls couldn’t be friends with guys. That had been one of my first lessons that I wasn’t like other girls. And they made it blatantly clear that they didn’t want to be friends with me.