Only then did he release her hand, almost hesitantly, before spinning around to scan the counter top. The spicy scent of his cologne stirred in the air.
“I swear I saw fruit in here somewhere…” He moved over to the entrance where Camila had found the light switch, and turned on more lights. She took a few steps to watch as he walked over to the breakfast bar and snatch a green apple out of a wooden bowl.
He looked over his shoulder, lifted a brow, then tossed the apple in the air before catching it. “Bon appetite.” He took a big bite and headed into the foyer.
Anger still brewed beneath the surface, but as Camila watched James Benton stride out of the room, inhaling hints of that heavenly cologne even still, a spark of excitement sparked up as well. The next twenty-eight days were sure to be interesting.
Chapter 5
James frowned as he tapped on the keyboard. He’d promised himself he’d leave his laptop alone, yet here he was, wasting the evening away trying to get on some stupid social media network.
He shook his head while staring at the bright screen. The cursor blinked, taunting him as he racked his brain. “Give it one last try…” he mumbled, typing the name of his first pet—a gerbil named Frank—followed by a one, a two, and a three. He punched the return button, irritation flaring as he watched the circle spin.
Password failed.
James groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding.” He hadn’t wanted to bother Stephanie so soon, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He grabbed his temporary cell phone (he’d left his personal cell back home) and dialed the only number programmed in the thing.
“Miss me so soon?” she asked.
“How do I log into my account?”
“Hello to you too. And which account is it?”
James hesitated; he didn’t want Stephanie making a big deal of things.Thingsbeing the situation with his personal chef. An image of the strong-willed woman shot to his mind. Gorgeous olive skin, cheeks flushed pink with anger as she basically told him off. Something he wasn’t used to.
James Benton lived in a world where most people bent down to kiss the ground he walked on. Whether they wanted his money or his acceptance or both, he rarely knew or cared. But this woman seemed perfectly content to forgo both, meaning she’d forgo a job that would pay her better than anything she was likely to find. A job that would allow her to spend the next month in a luxury mansion on one of the finest beaches in the country. Was he really that repugnant?
“James?” Stephanie trilled. “What account are you trying to log into?”
He cleared his throat. “MyBook.”
“MyBook?”she said like it was a dirty word. “Why?”
James rolled his eyes. “You opened the account for me, right?”
“Right, but—”
“Then please just tell me what password I need so that I can log in already.”
“Fine.” Okay, so maybe Stephanie mouthed off to him every once and a while, but he was glad about that. He couldn’t have a personal assistant who catered to feelings over his wellbeing or that of his business.
“It’s Bowie321.”
His face scrunched up. “Huh. That doesn’t sound remotely familiar.” Sure, he was a Bowie fan, but who wasn’t?
He typed out the characters in the open space and smacked the return key once more. The circle spun, the screen went black, and at last, revealed his MyBook profile.
“Ah,” he mumbled. “Sweet success.” James scrolled down to see a few of the updates Stephanie had posted for him. The latest ones encouraged viewers of The Lion’s Den to tune into their special live episode. He resisted the urge to click on those posts, realizing they’d probably garnered a fair share of angry comments after his outburst last night.
“Did it work?” Stephanie asked.
“Mmm, hmm…” It was all he could muster while typing Adel’s name into the search bar. He hit return, found her verified page, and flinched as he saw how many times the woman posted in a given day. And she, unlike him, was the one behind the updates.
Killing it at my shoot in Mazatlan,she boasted on a beach photo of her in a bikini. She was gorgeous, James would give her that much, but Adel hadn’t tapped into his heart just yet. He wasn’t sure any woman would. Heck, he hadn’t really crushed on a girl since his freshman year in college, and even then, he’d been compelled to leave it at that—a crush from afar.
James had known early on that finding a self-sufficient woman was the only way to weed out the ones more attracted to his bank account than they were him. But finding a woman in that category who had the other qualities he was looking for was proving a difficult task.
He scrolled past what seemed to be endless posts of Adel at her shoots and he recalled a detail that might help him find what he was looking for.
