“No,” she said quickly. “Why would I need to be scared of him? I’m designing a house for the guy. Nothing else.”
He began to scan the room, and she felt the sudden urge to hide from that piercing blue gaze. Her heart was thundering like she had just run a marathon. Like she just might actually be...
Afraid.
No. That was silly. Impossible. There really wasn’t anything to be afraid of.
He was just a man. A hard, scarred man with ink all over his skin, but that didn’t mean he was bad. Or scary.
Devlin had tattoos over every visible inch of his body from the neck down.
She didn’t want to know if they were anywhere else. There were just some things you shouldn’t know about your brother.
But yeah, tattoos didn’t make a man scary. Or dangerous. She knew that.
So she couldn’t figure out why her heart was still racing.
And then he saw them.
She felt a rush of heat move over her body as he raised his hand and gripped the brim of his cowboy hat, tipping his head down slowly in a brief acknowledgment.
She swallowed hard, her throat sticky and dry, then reached for her soda, feeling panicky. She took a long sip, forgetting there was rum in it, the burn making her cough.
“This is concerning,” Hayley said softly, her expression overly sharp.
“What is?” Faith asked, jerking her gaze away from Levi.
“You’renotacting normal.”
“I’m not used to subterfuge.” Faith sounded defensive. Because she felt a little defensive.
“The look on your face has nothing to do with the fact that he’s incredibly attractive?”
“Is he?” Faith asked, her tone disingenuous, but sweet. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Actually, until Hayley had said that, she hadn’t noticed. Well, she had, but she hadn’t connected that disquiet in her stomach with finding him...attractive.
He was out of her league in every way. Too old for her. Too hard for her.
Levi was the deep end of the pool, and she didn’t know how to swim. That much, she knew.
And she wouldn’t... He was a client. Even if she was a champion lap swimmer, there was no way.
He was no longer acknowledging her or Hayley, anyway, as his focus turned back to the bar.
“What’s going on with you?” Faith asked, very clumsily changing the subject and forcing herself to look at Hayley.
She and Hayley began to chat about other things, and she did her best to forget that Levi Tucker was in the bar at all.
He had obviously forgotten she was there, anyway.
Then, for some reason, some movement caught her attention, and she turned.
Levi was talking to a blonde, his head bent low, a smile on his face that made Faith feel like she’d just heard him say a dirty word. The blonde was looking back at him with the exact same expression. She was wearing a top that exposed her midriff, which was tight and tan, with a little sparkling piercing on her stomach.
She was exactly the kind of woman Faith could never hope to be, or compete with. And she shouldn’t want to, anyway.
Obviously, Levi Tucker was at the bar looking for a good time. And Faith wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him, so Blondie McBellyRing might as well be the one to do it.
