“You were unconscious.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
“On a beach lounger, covered in blood.”
“Head wounds bleed more.”
“I’m not going to ask how you know that.”
He deposits me on the sofa like I’m made of blown glass. The cream-colored cushions give me concerns about whether the blood is dry at this point, but I sink into them like I’m being swallowed by a very expensive cloud. For a moment, I just lie here, taking in the soaring wood-paneled ceilings and the understated furnishings and art that likely cost more than my annual salary. It’s an IYKYK kind of deal at these places.
“What’s the square footage of this shack?” Apparently, my coping mechanism for abject humiliation is snarky verbal diarrhea.
Jeremy pauses on his way to the bar area. “I don’t know. It has two bedrooms and a pool.”
Right. I already noticed the private infinity pool glowing turquoise through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Only two? How very un-billionaire of you. I thought you people got off on numbers.”
“You people.” He sounds oddly amused as he pulls ice from a freezer hidden behind a wide teak panel. “I’ll add that to the list of things you think you know about me.”
I slowly push myself up to sitting. My head feels like I downedsix margaritas. Scanning the space, I gesture vaguely at the obscene luxury of it all. “Why are you here by yourself?”
“Can’t a man want a vacation?”
“You’re not a man. You’re a robot.” The words are out before I can stop them. “At least according to your sister,” I quickly amend.
Something flickers across his face, but it’s gone too fast to read. “Sloane also thinks she knows a lot about me.”
“I’ve seen the spreadsheets you send, managing every detail of her treatment. One even rated the takeout restaurants around the Vanderbilt Hospital.” I wrinkle my nose. “That feels a little extra.”
He shrugs. “She was in that hospital for nearly two months after the stem cell transplant. Nutrition mattered.”
I open my mouth to give him a spicy comeback but…damn…that’s actually really sweet.
He returns to the couch with the ice and a damp cloth, and I finally get a good look at him without the haze of injured mortification clouding my gaze. His dark hair is slightly tousled and longer than I remember, like some high-priced stylist convinced him that a rugby-boy mini-mullet would soften his vibe. Spoiler alert: it does.
His bone structure is annoyingly symmetrical, the kind of face that probably makes him the cool guy in the tech nerd circles I assume he runs in. And don’t get me started on his lashes. They could make a Maybelline model weep with envy.
I’d always thought his eyes were brown, but now I see they’re hazel with flecks of gold. I imagine the color changes depending on the light, and in the warm glow of the villa’s soothing interior, they look almost amber.
“Thanks.” I reach for the ice. “I’ve got it from here. Don’t you have more important things to do?”
Instead of handing it over, he sits down next to me. Close enough that his knee brushes mine as he lifts the cool cloth to my temple with a gentleness that makes my breath catch.
Those amber eyes roll toward the ceiling. “Do you always ask so many questions?”
Only when trying to fill the silence so I don’t have to think about the fact that my entire life is in shambles and I’m sitting in a grumpy billionaire’s villa while he dabs blood off my face like I’m a stray cat he found in the dumpster.
“Do you always rescue damsels in distress?” I counter.
“You’re the first.”
“Lucky me.”
His hand stills and, for a moment, we just look at each other. The only sound is the thrum of my own pulse in my ears.
“They can’t know,” I blurt. “Sloane and the book club. Nobody can know about this.”
