His words proved prescient: After that, he was everywhere. At Dev’s poker night. At her and Olivia’s birthday party. At the coffee shop. At the grocery store. At the dispensary. At her favorite yoga class. But that was to be expected, in a small vacation town with an even smaller number of year-round residents.
If she were a different person, she would’ve been able torecover seamlessly from their first awkward meeting, laugh and joke and pivot into friendly acquaintanceship, if not actual friendship.
But instead, when she’d seen him approaching in the cereal aisle, her mind went blank. Even though she should’ve been used to it by now, something about a stranger unexpectedly coming up to talk to her when she was out and about always triggered a subconscious panic. Not that he was a stranger, exactly, but still. She couldn’t do anything besides smile tightly, nod in acknowledgment, then drop her head to examine the organic Special K knockoff in her hand.
Thankfully, he’d gotten the hint, nodded back, kept going, and that was that.
But even if she didn’t talk to him, their regular run-ins provided her with almosttoomany opportunities to take a detailed inventory of exactly what he looked like, after their first split-second encounter had denied her the chance.
She tried to keep her observations as impartial as possible. He had dark eyes and darker hair that fell over his forehead in shaggy, unruly curls. Skin bronzed by the sun. Cheekbones and jawline that were geometrically agreeable. A physique that corresponded to active hobbies and a job in manual labor. He wasn’t especially tall—five-nine at most—but he was brawny in the most literal beefcake-paper-towel-mascot sense of the word.
He was so beautiful he was almost boring, rescued only by a handful of jolie laide imperfections. His nose was disproportionately large, though she begrudgingly admitted it suited him more than a smaller one would. One eye was a little bit bigger than the other, if she looked long enough from exactly the right angle. His jaw was lightly pocked with faded acne scars—when it wasn’t hidden by an impressive beard in the winter.
She cataloged these tiny flaws without even realizing it, likethey would eventually add up to some equation that, if solved, would liberate her from her attraction to him.
She couldn’t figure out why his overbearing handsomeness flustered her so much. She’d spent years in LA in the company of people who’d hoarded more than their fair share of genetic blessings, without anyone getting under her skin like he did. Besides, she’d never thought of herself as shallow enough to have her head turned by looks alone. Many of her past relationships had been with people she’d found perfectly average-looking at first, where her physical attraction bloomed out of appreciation for their talent or intellect—then turned to repulsion by the time they broke up.
But the thing that unsettled her the most was the way he looked at her. When she went to pick up her latte at the counter, when she rolled up her mat at the end of class, when she wandered through the living room during their card games. It was different, somehow, from the way most other people gawked at her. A little too familiar, coming from someone she’d barely exchanged five sentences with.
Not leering. Not disrespectful. But familiar.
Of course, she couldn’t begin to explain any of that to Olivia right now. Olivia would just roll her eyes and tell Merritt she was being ridiculous. Which she was.
“Forget it. You’re right. I’ll call him tomorrow,” Merritt said with a sigh.
2
When Nikolaos Petrakis thought aboutMerritt Valentine, the first word that came to mind wassharp. Sharp jaw, sharp chin, sharp nose, sharp cheekbones jutting like cliffs. Her lips were a problem, though. They obviously hadn’t gotten the message. They were lush and rosy and soft looking, though he knew from experience they were likely concealing a tongue sharper than everything else put together.
Which was why, even with her back to him, he was having such a hard time concentrating as she led him through the house. Her hair looked soft, too, dark brown and wavy, shot through with silver like Christmas tinsel. He forced himself to focus on what she was saying before his mind drifted far enough to consider the relative softness of anything below her neck.
Not that he hadn’t considered it before. But this was not the time.
He realized too late that she’d stopped talking and turned tolook at him, waiting for a response. Amber eyes blinked warily from behind oversized tortoiseshell glasses.
He cleared his throat. “Good bones,” he commented, nodding thoughtfully and gazing around the kitchen. She raised an eyebrow and kept walking.
It was something of an understatement. The house was a local landmark, known around town as “The Mollusk,” designed by an eccentric and internationally renowned architect in the early eighties. The first time Niko had seen it, he’d thought it looked like a Bond villain’s lair, or like a wizard had docked their flying ship on the side of the mountain and forgotten about it. The three-story split-level was bursting with quirky architectural details everywhere he looked, walls and ceilings and windows swooping and curving into the most unexpected arrangements.
It had been on the market for years before Merritt had scooped it up, too large and too bizarre and too precariously perched on the edge of the mountain for most people to know what to make of it. Even if he couldn’t help her out, Niko would’ve accepted Merritt’s invitation just for a chance to see the interior.
Of course, he probably would’ve accepted her invitation to tour the inside of a barrel, but that was beside the point.
He snuck another look at her, the sun glinting off the delicate silver rings and studs lining the outer edges of her ears. She’d been all business from the moment he’d pulled up, her face tense and serious, leading him through the house at a brisk pace.
She cast her eyes around the living room, occasionally settling on him before quickly flicking them away. Her hands moved constantly even when she stood still—intertwining at her back, then fluttering up to rest briefly at her hips before crossingtightly over her chest. Just when he thought she was done, she propped one against her cheek as she thought.
“Could we get the fireplaces working again?” She cocked her head toward a boarded-up mantel, her hand drifting down to rub the back of her neck absently.
“Sure.” He looked down at the grungy beige wall-to-wall carpet that extended down the stairs. “And you want all this to go?”
“Definitely. You think it’s hardwood under there?”
“Probably not, but we can figure something else out.” He glanced out an enormous crescent-shaped window overlooking a breathtaking view of the mountains. “All these windows are pretty irregular; were you thinking about doing custom shutters?”
“Maybe. Curtains would probably be easier, right? And cheaper.”
Niko shrugged. “I could do it at cost. Wouldn’t be too hard.”
