I don’t want to admit that seeing Hunter Storm again is the hardest part about returning to New Orleans.
I pay the driver and grab my one small suitcase. The rest of my stuff will be delivered to my parents’ house tomorrow, so I’m traveling light. At least I don’t have to live with my parents. I’ll see them plenty, but the idea of moving back into my childhood bedroom is a bit too much.
I look up at the house before me curiously.
It’s freshly painted in white with blue trim and is much better taken care of than I’d expected it to be. I had assumed it would have a barely lived-in feel, because the agent I spoke with explained how the owners are rarely home, but that they don’t like to move their cat every time they leave on business. She said the owners are a young couple with a baby and that the man’s line of work is rather “unconventional,” but she didn’t elaborate. And I didn’t ask. This is New Orleans—unconventional could mean literally anything.
It’s a two-story, townhouse-style home with a cute front porch and upper balcony. Being in the city, it’s right next to the neighboring homes, but it has a driveway that leads into the back of the lot, and the entire property has a warm, homey feeling. And the location can’t be beat. It’s on a quiet side street only a block from Jackson Square.
The agent from the pet sitting service told me the owners would be home to meet me and show me around the place, so I climb the front steps. Catching sight of the sign that readsCome inside porch to find doorbell, I push through the screen door and step inside the porch, and that’s when I come face to furry face with a handsome, orange-striped cat sitting on a porch swing and looking up at me with interest. I go to give it a quick pat.
“You’re a sweetheart,” I murmur into the kitty’s long fur. “I could definitely take care of you.”
The enclosed screen makes more sense now—it’s a perfect space for a cat to hang out.
Before I can press the doorbell, I hear the door to the house open, and I straighten up. The wooden door opens outward, and it stands between me and the owner of the house, so I take the few steps around.
And…I suck back my gasp at who’s standing in the doorway.
Holy. Shit.
For the first time in ten years, I stare up into the deep green eyes of Hunter Storm.
I immediately start shaking. I don’t know if he notices. He seems a little preoccupied staring at my breasts.
He’s so…masculine. His eyes are greener than I remember. His dark, wavy hair’s a little more tamed except for one lock that still falls over his forehead. His jaw is set and shadowed with a neatly-trimmed beard.
And Jesus, he’s built. I get that he’s a professional athlete, but wow…he’s grown up nice. He’s all man now.
I watch the muscles in Hunter’s forearm flex as he braces his arm against the door. The urging to touch him is too strong, too scary. But God, how I want to.
I almost picked up the phone to call him a thousand times over the last ten years—when I blew my first audition and was sitting on the steps of my dorm room at NYU, crying my eyes out; when I broke up with three guys in a week because none of them made me feel a millionth of what I felt when I was with him; when I found out backstage I had to replace the lead of Seasonal Bliss and was certain I was going to throw up from terror. And of course, the last time I almost called him when my world was falling apart.
I always hung up before he answered. And now, he’s standing right in front of me.
Holy. Shit.
Chapter 3
Hunter
Iopen the door to let Theo inside.
Then someone steps around the corner into the doorway.
I suck in my breath as my world tips on its axis like it hasn’t done in ten years.
Winter Princess Allen.
Her mouth drops open, and we stare at each other in silence.
“You’re supposed to be my new boss,” she finally says, immediately reaching for the spaghetti straps of her tank top, straps that have fallen off her shoulders, exposing creamy skin underneath.
I don’t speak or move at first. I just take her in for a long minute—
Same chest-length black hair that I used to bury my fingers in, bewitching red pout that could swear like a sailor, and almond-shaped blue eyes that saw right through me like nobody else ever could.
Her pink frilly skirt is short enough that I can see the scar on her mid-thigh she got when she slipped in the lake and cut herself on a rock. The thin fabric of her top hides absolutely nothing, and her nipples are poking against the fabric, practically daring me to touch them. Her feet are in open-toed sandals, as usual, and her toenails are painted pink. Cotton candy pink, I think she used to correct me.
