Expensive.
Sexy.
I shifted in my seat, focusing on the phone in her manicured hand and frowned at her perfect nails that matched the color of her silly wee SUV. Nails that would no doubt feel fucking amazing raking down my back. I threw out the image and opined gruffly, “If you’re going to get your hands dirty, you should clip those off.”
Tierney Silver glanced up from the device in her hand, her hazel eyes wide. “What?”
“Your nails.”
“Cut my nails?” she asked, as if I’d suggested she shave her head. “No way. I can help without cutting my nails.” Her frown was disapproving as she turned back to her phone, muttering under her breath about yetis or some such nonsense.
I studied her profile as she swiped on her screen looking, I supposed, for the mood board she and Cammie had come up with.
The photos online of Tierney didn’t do her justice.
She photographed as a pretty, well-turned-out young woman but nothing extraordinary. Not some raging beauty. But if anything my world travels had taught me was that beauty was subjective. Some people just had a magnetism in real life that didn’t come through in a photograph. Something untenable and indescribable that made you unable to look away. That made them the most gorgeous person you’d ever met in your damn life.
Tierney Silver was that. And I hadn’t expected it from the spoiled heiress. Even in jeans, a Henley, hiking boots, with her blond hair tied back in a ponytail, she was stunning. One of those women who would look good in a black plastic rubbish bag.
Up close I could see a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. There was a larger freckle right on the corner of her lush top lip. I stared at it as she muttered to herself about the mood board.
What the fuck was happening here?
I wrenched my gaze away, annoyed at myself for acting as doe-eyed as the young lads on the island. They were all twittering like fools over the American hotel heiress.
Even if I didn’t have a rule against sleeping with women from the island, I wouldn’t touch Tierney Silver. Spoiled, rich, pampered twenty-seven-year-olds didn’t really do it for me. At least not usually.
Though it was clear she was something more. My previous career had taught me to see beyond what people presented to the world.
There was a dark grief in Tierney’s hazel eyes.
And secrets.
I was a bloodhound when it came to secrets. Could smell them from miles away. Once it had been my business to ferret out secrets. But this … her …
Not my business, I reminded myself.
“Aha!” Tierney held the phone up to my face. “This is what we’re thinking for the dining room.” She scrolled through the mood board. I was pleasantly surprised to see a contemporary twist on traditional Victorian coastal design. I’d half expected her to turn the B and B into a too cold, too modern guesthouse along the lines of some of the hotels in the empire she’d given up.
And who gives up their rights to a multibillion-dollar hotel chain?
I tried to focus on the B and B since it was where I would be working for at least the next six months. “That looks out of place.” I tapped on the image of the antique Welsh dresser.
“Right.” She looked up at me and gave me a smile. Her smile was too sweet. I felt it in places I really shouldn’t.
Okay, aye, this was a problem.
“I included it because my grandmother had one like it and I’d love to incorporate the idea into the dining room but with a modern twist. So far, I’m having no such luck finding a piece of furniture that will work with the design.” She shrugged. “I’ll keep looking.” Turning back to her phone, she tapped the screen a few times. “Now this is one of the bunk-bed rooms, and I saw this design where they custom built three bunk beds, two beneath and then one on top going the opposite way, like this. Do you think you could build something like that? It would be a great way to increase capacity in what is a smaller room.”
I studied the photo she showed me, moving in closer to her. It was a clever design. “Aye, I can do that.”
She turned to stare up at me, her eyes widening ever so slightly upon realizing how close we were. A little splash of red on her cheeks and an almost imperceptible intake of breath told me she was affected by my nearness. Her pupils dilated.
So the pampered princess was attracted to me too.
Aye, this was a problem.
Too young. Too sweet. Too much my client.
