“Unit twelve—North Shore Storage.”
He frowns and there’s a sharp edge to his voice. “Are you there alone?”
“Yes. It’s just me. And I need help moving a piano.”
He pushes his bulk away from the wall and nods to the door. My head spins as I open it. He was the last person I was expecting to see here. Mallorie will die when I tell her about this.
We start to walk side by side back to the warehouse. “What are you doing in the storage unit?” he asks. “Apart from moving pianos about.”
I take a deep breath, knowing how odd this is going to sound. “I’m collecting headless mannequins.”
I feel his gaze dart to me in the corner of my eye. Then the back of his hand brushes against mine and sends a sizzle of heat up my arm.
“I’m doing a favor for a friend. She’s a stylist, so she’s planning props for department store windows and private parties.”
“Ah,” he nods once. “So… the outfit…”
“What, this old thing?” I say brightly.
He looks me up and down again, lazier this time. How does he manage to make my knees feel weak with just one look?
Each inch of flesh his gaze touches heats by a few degrees until I’m sweating like a murderer on Death Row inside this ridiculous costume.
“It’s not mine,” I reply when the taut silence becomes too much. “I just tried it on for fun.”
“It makes you look like trouble.”
He almost smiles and my stomach ripples like it was just praised by the Pope.
I turn the topic onto safer ground.
“What are you doing here at the port?” My eyes narrow. “Are you following me?”
He hesitates for so long I wonder if he didn’t hear me.
“I’m an investor,” he says eventually, with the faintest of frowns. “I part own this place so I like to come and check how it’s doing some days.”
“Uh huh.” So,that’show he can afford to buy thousand dollar shirts.
“And no, I’m not following you. Just a happy coincidence.”
His frown suggests he’s the opposite of happy. Or rather, preoccupied with something else.
“Hopefully this won’t take long. I don’t want to keep you.”
“If you’re going to be traipsing about inthatoutfit, Erin, you can keep me as long as you like.”
My feet come to a slow stop as I try and catch my breath.
When he realizes I’m not with him, he turns around, not one fleck of surprise on that sculpted face.
“Come on. This piano isn’t going to move itself.”
I somehow recover under his soft command and follow him into the warehouse. Because the sun is going down, the light is already sparse. He looks around the space and spots the piano, then he shrugs off his suit jacket and hangs it over the antler of a stag head.
I try not to drool as he rolls up his sleeves and shows off the ink that has me behaving like a bitch in heat. And I try not to totter in these sequins, but the fact I can hardly breathe in this thing isn’t helping. There’s a permanent flush across the mounds of my cleavage and I can feel it crawling right up my neck.
We reach the piano and I make a half-hearted attempt to push it a little. Even with some effort on my part, it doesn’t budge.
