AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m just the assistant.”
Good grief. Someone needed to warn the poor man before they threw him on an unexpected date with his ex-girlfriend.
Adalyn rose. “I’m picking up lunch. Salads and sandwiches again.”
“Why don’t you have it delivered?” I asked.
“Because I need an excuse to get out of this room for a minute.”
Understandable. “I’ll take a turkey club.”
She made a notation. It took another ten minutes to gather orders and make her list before Adalyn left to pick up lunch.
Once the room was clear, I let myself into the hall and down to the end where the suite was situated. Jax went with Bridget to the auction, so Chad was likely in the room with Rhett, but it would have to do.
I rapped my knuckles on the door and waited in the heavy silence. My nerves heightened the longer I had to wait, and I was about to turn away when the door swung open.
“Oh, good—” I turned back, and the rest of my sentence became lodged in my throat, sticking there like thick maple syrup. Rhett stood in the doorway, framed by light from the windows behind him, shirtless.
Yes, he wasshirtless. I’d seen this a thousand times on screens big and small and in print, but the whole effect was better in real life. His sculpted chest still had a sheen from the shower he obviously just came from, and his dark hair stuck up at odd angles as though he’d run a towel roughly over it but no brush. I’d been to the fine arts museum in San Francisco and saw my share of Greek sculptures in the flesh, and Rhett Myers could blend in perfectly among them.
His jeans were slung on his hips, and he wiped the white towel over his neck. “Sorry,” he said. “I was hurrying.”
“It’s fine.”
He gestured that I was welcome to come in as he turned into the room. Chad didn’t appear to be anywhere. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me while Rhett went back into the bedroom. His back muscles shifted as he walked, mesmerizing me. How many hours did this man have to work out in a gym to achieve this level of perfection? And what was his diet like? It had to be made up of kale and salmon or something else equally healthy and disgusting.
He returned with a shirt and pulled it over his chest in a smooth motion, and I quietly grieved the presence of his fitted gray tee.
All good things must come to an end, I supposed.
“What’s up?”
I really needed to cease ogling the poor man. My attention snapped up to his amused face. Great. He’d caught me checking him out. At least he didn’t look mad about it. If anything, he was unfazed.
“I just came by to talk about your date tonight. Bridget finished the auction, and—”
“I know,” he said, moving into the sitting area and pulling on his socks. “Bridget called me. It’s not ideal, but it is what it is. I can’t always get what I want.”
He seemed so unruffled. My umbrage was unnecessary. “Oh, then I was coming to warn you for nothing.”
Rhett pulled on his shoes and bent to tie them. His fingers doing something so normal and mundane was oddly riveting. I’d seen those fingers many times on giant screens moving aside a woman’s lock of hair or wrapping around the back of her neck before he leaned in to kiss her, but never doing anything so simple like tying his shoes.
He sat back. “Have you ever been to Boston before?”
“No. My mom is a flight attendant, so when she had time off to spend with me, we usually stuck around at home. The last thing she wanted to do was use her amazing flight benefits to take me anywhere cool.”
He gestured for me to come closer, and I took the firm, gray chair opposite his sofa.
“But you aren’t bitter or anything,” he said.
“I’m really not, but I can see how I sounded that way. She was a single mom, and she worked really hard to provide for me. I haven’t suffered from my lack of travel.”
Rhett leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “It sounds like you two are close.”
“We are. She thinks she needs to know as much about my life as Bridget knows of yours. I’m not as nice as you, because I don’t give her an all-access pass.” Though, in all reality, my mom came pretty close.
He sat up. “I’d say it’s part of the gig for me, but I don’t think Bridget has an all-access pass either.”
