And here he now stands, leather slung over his back with a leering skull that reminds me why some things are meant to stay untouched.
“She’s on her way,” he announces in smooth tones, pocketing his phone. “Don’t let her give you any shit. It’s an honest mistake.”
“I should have checked.” I shrug, dropping my gaze to the desk before me.
“So should she,” he growls, pulling my focus back up.
I meet warm eyes beneath a furrowed brow, his honesty evident as he studies my face.
“Man,” Jinx breathes. “It’s only been, what, ten years? Yet you’ve changed so damn much.”
Yeah. That was the goal.
THREE
JINX
Fucking Marty’s daughter.The hell.
I glance up from mindlessly scrolling my phone and steal a look at her. Kyra frowns intently at the computer before her, thumbnail pressed against the bow of her lips. Her full fucking lips. Lips, I’ve watched wrap around a striped milkshake straw before she?—
“You’ve made me late,” Mariana announces as she erupts through the open door. “Here.”
She slaps an identical pale brown envelope to the one folded in my back pocket on my chest. I pull her report out and hand it over, noting the sudden flurry of fingers over a keyboard behind me.
Mariana intimidates Kyra, and I don’t blame her one bit. I’ve seen men who’d run into a bar fight without hesitation cower in this woman’s presence.
The realtor’s flawless eyebrows pinch as she stares down at the ugly crease that runs the length of the paperwork. “Thanks.” Shrewd eyes flick toward Kyra, a complaint poised on her glossy lips.
“Don’t.” I shift to the side, using my body to block her line of sight. “It’s her first week.”
A sigh is all the response I get before Mariana whirls and charges out the door to her double-parked, still running, Jaguar. A cloud of aromatic perfume resides in her wake. I pity the fool who’s about to meet her.
“Thanks.” The softly spoken word pulls my attention away from the hurricane speeding off from the curb to where Kyra stopped typing behind me.
“No sweat.” I glance out the open door at the sunny day beyond, then back to where the woman fusses with God-knows-what on her desk. I should get back on the road, but… “Where are you staying now that you’re back?”
“With my parents.” Her shoulders hitch toward her ears when she sets her elbows on the desk before her. “I’m on the lookout for a place of my own, but it’s kind of hard when there’s, like, two agents in the town who are any good andshe’sone of them.”
A chuckle catches in my throat. “True that.”
“Anyway…”
Anyway.The whole fucking interaction should be awkward enough given she’s Marty’s daughter, but the gut-twisting anxiety triples each time she parts her lips to wet them with the tip of her deep pink tongue.
Yeah, I remember who she is. Or at least, who shewas.Kyra wasn’t such a smoke-show back then. She was a timid bird content to watch the world go by, perched in the quiet corners of the school hall, waiting to be startled into motion. Yet no matter how hard she tried to blend in, to hide, my gaze somehow always managed to find her.
She piqued my interest back then.
She has me fascinated now.
“Do you need anything else?” Expectant brown eyes watch me, a hint of trepidation in their depths.
“Nope.” I lift the correct paperwork between us in a kind of wave. “Thanks.” Then bolt toward the door like a pussy.This isn’t you.“Actually…” I stall and slowly turn on my heel.
She hasn’t moved.
“What are you doing after work tomorrow?”
