It was incredibly warm and inviting despite its massive size.
Okay, maybe saying Cole wasobnoxiouswas too strong of a word.
To be honest, Cole and I had met exactly once when I was a kid, and we’d only seen each other a few times since he’d moved back to Crystal Fork.
I didn’t reallyknowhim.
Our recent meetings had been at events that Millie had invited her nephews to attend.
Cole and Asher were always invited to family gatherings and events.
Asher never showed.
Cole made an appearance occasionally, probably only when he thought it would be incredibly rude to Millie not to show up.
So yeah, I probably didn’t know Cole well enough to judge him.
But our few meetings had just been so…awkward.
Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely certain that the edginess I felt around Cole was completely due to his abrasive personality.
I had a PhD in economics, and I was a market analyst. I’d dealt with plenty of rude, rich men in my career. I didn’t cringe or flinch away from abrupt or cutting comments. I let them roll off my back because I was in the business world.
Although I hated to admit it, my uneasiness around Cole was probably more about my physical reaction to him than his personality.
Cole was ridiculously attractive.
Yeah, he bore a resemblance to his gorgeous cousins with his dark-brown hair, chiseled jawline, and impressive build. But there was something about Cole that made me react far more differently to him than I did to his cousins.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who adored every guy who radiated bad boy vibes, but there was something mysterious about Cole that made my female hormones stand up and pay attention.
His hazel eyes always looked at me like he could read me with a glance, andthatwas pretty damn uncomfortable for me.
Yet it also intrigued me.
It made me want to know the man underneath Cole’s seemingly ambivalent and distant guise.
No! No! No! Not happening!
I’d had this argument with myself before, and my common sense always won out.
Maybe there was part of me that found Cole Remington beguiling and fascinating, but the man had trouble written all over him.
He was abrupt and rude.
There was probably absolutelynothingbeneath his surly façade.
Cole might be a little over six feet of hard muscle and hotness, but he’d acted like a jerk the few times we’d met.
The best way to handle a guy like Cole was to steer clear of him.
If a guy acted like a jerk, he was a jerk.
Period!
End of story!
Exclamation point!
