Street urchin? Ouch.She looked bad but she didn’t lookthatbad, did she?
“Listen, buddy, I’m no worse than that filthy hunk of junk you consider fit for transporting actual human beings!”
Wrong answer.
The man turned his back to her without so much as a scoff. Well…that did it. She’d messed things up this time. Letting her shoulders fall, she tucked the fifty bucks back in her money belt. As she debated whether she should save the little cash she had or splurge and try to find a cheap hotel for the evening, a light wind brushed past her.
Mr. M&M’s.
He waltzed straight by Miri toward the cabbie. “Can you take me to Manacapuru tonight?” he asked.
The driver glanced at a defeated Miri standing off to the side.
“Sim. Three hundred. Americano.”
“Fine.” Mr. M&M’s handed over the cash and the two of them circled the taxi, with the driver popping the trunk as he got inside. Mr. M&M’s dropped his bag into the trunk then lifted his hand, motioning to Miri. “You coming?”
Miri stood straight, then turned both ways to check her surroundings. She placed her hand on her chest. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes, Pringles. You’re heading to Manacapuru, aren’t you?”
“Uh-uh. Not that one,” the driver called out the window, glaring at her.
“She’s with me,” Mr. M&M’s said, sending a wave of heat over Miri’s face.She’s with me.She liked the sound of that.
“She called my car a filthy hunk of junk.”
Mr. M&M’s craned his neck to look inside, then turned up his nose. “Well, itisfilthy.” But before the driver could protest again, Mr. M&M’s added, “I’ll give you an extra hundred.”
“What? No, I can’t let you do that,” Miri called out, but it was too late. Mr. M&M’s was already placing more money in the driver’s palm out the window, signaling their agreement.
“Call it payment for the M&M’s,” he said with a sexy smile. “Now, are you coming, or what? Déguédine. The money’s been spent no matter if you join me.”
Miri’s mind raced, creating elaborate scenarios of how this could end, ranging from romance to kidnapping. Wait…was this real life? Because only in her fantasies did men like him even notice her. Gorgeous face. Fantastic hair. Long limbs. Large hands. And that accent? Miri pinched the soft webbing between her thumb and index finger to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Nope. Awake. Wide awake.
WWCMD?
Not stand here like a bump on a log, that’s for sure.
Whatshouldshe do?
Debate her other options (none). Analyze her chance of failure (eh…inconclusive). And finally, trust her gut (which shouldprobablynot be trusted given the amount of whirling andfluttering going on inside her as she eyed Mr. M&M’s in all his handsome glory). No, shouldn’t trust the gut when the choices amounted to little more than hot guy versus sleeping in the airport and possibly getting fired.
“I’m in.”
Chapter
Two
Global Geographywouldn’t love learningthat Rafael had splurged on a three-hundred-dollar cab ride, but when he’d texted his boss that he’d missed the bus, he’d told him, “Do what you need to do” to get to Manacapuru. He figured that gave him free rein to spendGloGeo’s money as he best saw fit. Spending an extra hundred for some random stranger to tag along, though? Yeah…But what was he supposed to have done? Leave her there? By the look of things, her day had been even worse than his. It’s what any Good Samaritan would have done and had nothing to do with the fact that he was thoroughly charmed.
Okay, fine. It had everything to do with that.
He hadn’t meant to stare when he’d first crouched down to pick up the errant Pringles, but her sapphire eyes entranced him from behind her glasses. And as the playful words gushed out of her mouth like a faucet that couldn’t be turned off, clearly not an attempt to impress him, well…he’d been downrightcaptivated. Something about her whole nerdy-glasses-and-messy-bun combo was doing it for him.
Not that he was in Brazil looking for romance. But given the unwelcome hellish couple of weeks he was in for on this trip, he deserved a momentary distraction.
“Here.” The woman handed over a wad of cash from the pouch underneath her shirt. “I have fifty-two dollars, but I can get you the rest when we get to Manacapuru.”
