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AKA my older brother’s college roommate.
AKA total playboy.
AKA billionaire heir to the Helius Airlines empire.
If anything, time has only made Luke hotter. He’s traded in his casual T-shirts and ripped jeans for a suit that lets the whole world know how powerful his family is. How powerfulheis. His face is sharper, his body broader. And his jaw is shadowed in a way that tells me he’s probably the kind of guy who needs to shave every day.
I wonder what that stubble would feel like between my legs. I squash the thought immediately, flushing in embarrassment. Admittedly, when my brother Cooper brought Luke home for Thanksgiving my junior year of high school, it was a formative experience for my hormones. But Luke, who will flirt with practically any woman, hasneverflirted with me.
Except, the way he’s looking at me now...he looks surprised.
He noticed I cut my hair.
Why did he notice my hair?
And then any appreciation vanishes from his face. He rolls his eyes as he releases his hold on the purple scarf. “Of course you’d knock everything over. You can’t even walk down a sidewalk without causing a commotion.”
“Luke,” I acknowledge frostily, rising to my feet.
I turn away from Luke to give the vendor the hats and scarves I’ve collected. “I really am so sorry, sir. I um, I can buy a scarf?”
The vendor sighs heavily, like it’s been a long morning.
“Or two scarves?” I try again. I don’t exactly have tons of spare funds at the moment, but I feel horrible for spilling coffee all over his stuff. “Maybe a hat?”
Luke discretely reaches into his wallet and pulls out five one-hundred-dollar bills. “My apologies for the inconvenience. And she’ll take the lavender scarf. She doesn’t want a hat. They look terrible on her.”
Then he turns and strides away.
I gape after him. “I do too look good in hats!”
Luke doesn’t acknowledge me.
The vendor hands me back the lavender scarf and grins down at the money in his hand, looking a lot more cheerful.
“Thank you, I really am so sorry—”
The vendor looks up from counting the bills and glares at me.
“Right. I’ll get out of your hair.”
I turn and jog after Luke, catching up with him while he’s waiting for a break in traffic. “I can pay you back for the scarf.” I hold out my crumpled five-dollar bill that’s only slightly coffee stained.
Luke winces. “Please don’t.”
I shove the money back into my pocket and do my best to drape the lavender scarf around my neck so that it covers up the coffee stain.
Luke watches me futilely move the scarf around in front of my chest like it’s a fashion car crash he can’t quite tear his eyes away from.
“That was generous of you,” I grudgingly admit. “To pay the vendor like that.” I can’t quite bring myself to thank him for the scarf, since he was the one who bumped into me, but I can acknowledge an act of kindness when I see it.
Luke was always smart, ambitious, and even charming when he wanted to be. But I hadn’t remembered him beingnice.Any time you caught him doing something kind, he’d eventually reveal he’d done the “kind” thing for some totally selfish reason.
I never understood why Cooper had stayed friends with him after college. But maybe he’s grown. Maybe he really is a nice person now.
Luke snorts. “It wasn’t generous. It was self-preservations. I don’t need some story hitting the news about the mean billionaire bullying a humble vendor. This way if he recognizes me and tweets about it, I come out looking good.”
I blink. I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is Luke Dewinter. Of course, there’s a cynical motive underneath the one kind thing he did this morning.
