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The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. “First you call me handsome and now you admit that you’re lusting after my body.” He refilled the glass with more of his excellent whisky and pushed it toward her. “I think I like it when you drink.”
“I’m not drunk,” she said, sliding the glass back toward him, which was the truth, but a few more sips and she would be. “I’m just stating facts. And I’m definitely not lusting. I mean, yeah, sure, you’re a good-looking guy, but no worries. You’re totally safe from me. You’re not my type at all.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s your type?”
“Nerdy bookworms who love their mothers.”
The laughter in his eyes died. “I love my mother.”
“Really? Because you have a funny way of showing it.”
“You’ve been in this town, what? A month? You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The way he dismissed her made her want to show him that she did know what she was talking about. She took back the glass of whisky and took another sip. For courage. Here goes nothing.
“I might not have been in town long, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on here. Let me see if I got this right. You’re the oldest of two kids who basically had a great life. You went on to the Powers family alma mater, graduated top of your class, went to grad school, started your own business, and began living this awesome life, because why wouldn’t you? I mean, million-dollar beach houses just fall into your lap, right? You look gorgeous in a black tuxedo and you managed to make the world’s smartest most beautiful woman, Victoria, fall madly in love with you, but because you couldn’t commit, she got sick of you and went after someone who would. Your mother loves both her children, of course, but because there’s usually this weird mother-son connection, you’re the apple of her eye and now that you’re pushing forty—”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“Close enough. Now that you’re getting older, she doesn’t want you to wake up one morning and regret your choices. She loves you and wants what’s best for you but you can’t even be bothered to come home except maybe once every other year, and then that’s when you announce to her that her perfect, almost-future daughter-in-law has gone on to greener pastures. Yeah, you’re a real prince, all right. Either you’re the most selfish man on the planet or the most clueless.”
He stilled. The only sound for the next minute was the gentle lap of the gulf water as it hit the shore. Normally, Sarah would find that soothing, but instead, the water’s rhythmic back and forth only seemed to punctuate her words like great big exclamation points.
Oh, boy. This time her big mouth had gone too far. Damn whisky.
“I’m a real bastard, aren’t I?” He sounded calm enough, but no one could hear themselves described the way she’d pictured him and like it.
She let out a pent-up breath of air. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what came next. But she had too much pride to let him be the one kicking her out. “Look. This is your house and you didn’t know about the lease. So, I’ll let you out of it. I’ll pack my stuff up and be out of your hair by morning.” Where she’d go, she had no idea. She’d worry about that later. She stood to leave, but he
waved her back in her chair.
“I thought you had another month until Frida and Ed got back,” he said.
“I do, but under the circumstances, I thought—”
“What? You thought I’d kick you out after my sister promised you could stay here? Do you want my family to disown me?”
A small twinge of hope ignited in her chest. “I just thought that after the things I said, you wouldn’t want me hanging around.”
He shrugged. “It’s no skin off my nose if you want to stay.”
She was too stunned to say anything for a moment. “Stay as in…a few days until I find something else, or stay for the rest of my time here in Whispering Bay?”
“Stay as long as you like. Hell, you can be my moral compass if you want. You seem to be pretty good at that.”
“Really?”
He looked at her. “Yes to staying. No to being my moral compass. That was a joke. From now on, keep your opinions to yourself. I just have two rules. One, pick up your own crap, and two, don’t mess with my favorites channel on the TV remote again. Ever.”
“I can do that,” she said cautiously.
“It’s late. Maybe you should go back to bed now.”
He was dismissing her. Not that she cared really. He was going to let her stay! She stood, a little wobbly at first. She really shouldn’t have had that last sip of whisky. “Thank you. Really. I mean, I appreciate this more than I can say.”
“No problem,” he said, reaching out to pour himself more whisky. She walked toward the door and looked back for a moment, wondering if she should say something else or just go inside. But there wasn’t anything left to say, really. If he wanted to drink away his sorrows, that was his business.
Except, she couldn’t help but feel the teeniest bit sorry for him. Poor handsome rich guy. Correction: Poor handsome sexy rich guy.
