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I wasn’t lying about having a massive project I’d been working on. On the contrary, it kept me in the office for twelve hours a day.
All of that was worthwhile when I finally got the contract back from my client with a notarized signature. A half-hour after that came the basket with Bartlett pears, a bottle of Sangiovese Reserve wine, and a few other delicacies I hadn’t bothered to investigate yet.
I gathered the basket to bring to Bree’s house, barely saying goodbye to my colleagues as I took off from my Beverly Hills office as fast as possible. As soon as I’d gotten onto Pacific Coast Highway, I lowered the roof of my car, blasted my music, and belted Fleetwood Mac all the way to my best friend’s house.
I met her eyes as soon as I’d walked in, and she grinned widely before sending me to change into my bathing suit.
Now, as the sun began to set fully and the breeze started coming in colder over the Pacific, my wine-red bikini was feeling less like a fashion statement and more like death by exposure. I unknotted the sarong around my waist and wrapped it around my shoulders before sitting on the lounge chair where I’d placed my margarita and pulled out my phone.
The ice in my margarita had melted, but it still had the perfect amount of tequila, so I sipped at it as I scrolled through the texts I’d received over the last few hours. Some of them were from coworkers asking if I would look over some of their contracts (at five on a Friday, idiot?). There was also a congratulatory message from my boss about the deal I’d closed, and a few were from some of the conquests I’d been ignoring over the last week to focus on work.
I contemplated the names as they popped up, thinking of each of them in turn and debating the merits of giving them each another go. I was too tired to go out tonight and find someone new, but it went against the grain to give any of the people I hooked up with the impression that I was overly attached.
“Aunt Nat?”
I hurriedly shut down the screen on my phone and looked up at John, Jake and Ash’s little four-year-old. He was just as handsome and charming as his dad, with his mom’s open heart, and it had taken no time at all for me to fall in love with the kid.
“Yeah, honey?”
“Jackson and Addy went to watch a movie, and they said we’re too little to watch with them. Tell them we’re big kids!”
I bit down on my lip, trying not to laugh at the little boy’s indignation. “What will Mom and Dad say?”
“They’ll say we’re too little.”
“You wanna know what I think?” I leaned in, smiling like I was going to tell him a grand secret. “I think you, Izzy, and Kaley should watch a different movie and make the bigger kids jealous. What do you think?”
The way John’s big, brown eyes lit up told me he’d inherited his dad’s sense of mischief, which was legendary. As I watched him shuffle away, I thought that maybe—maybe—I should’ve felt bad about the glint of vengeance I’d unleashed, but I just couldn’t bring myself to.
“What kind of monster did you just create?”
I looked around, feeling everything in me curling at the sound of the rich, smoke-filled voice approaching me, and I looked up at Spencer.
“The kind that gets what they need,” I said, raising my eyebrow as I stood from the chair and looked at my phone again. I opened a new text, focusing all my attention on my reply.
The need to make a quick choice had pushed me to decide on Conner. We’d met about two weeks before at Perch, and his rich, bronze-colored skin and stunning teal eyes had drawn me to him. It had been one of the better nights I’d had in a while, and as far as last-minute choices went, he was a really good one.
“You’re pretty attached to that phone, aren’t you?”
I raised my eyes to him, narrowing my gaze to a focused point. “Seriously? You’re going to call me out for an unhealthy attachment to my phone? Shall we revisit your extremely unhealthy attachment to your phone, Casanova?”
“Are you going to hold that over me for the rest of my life?” he asked, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other in such a way that it drew my eye like a magnet to that spot between his legs, where, unfortunately, I knew exactly what he was packing.
I crossed my arms and let my fingers settle on my biceps as my other hand cradled my phone. “I think I will. That was an entirely unique experience; at least, it was for me. Who knows? Maybe you answer the phone in the middle of fucking every girl you get into bed.”
I turned away from him, thinking I would just walk away and be done with this whole thing.
“Nat, wait—”
I hadn’t been expecting him to reach out and make a grab for my arm; unfortunately, it was a true miscalculation on his behalf since he’d grabbed ahold of the arm holding my phone.
“Fuck!” I yelled as I watched my phone go flying in a spectacular arc before it made a splash, landing in the pool.
Chapter Three
NAT
