CHAPTER FOUR
Nora had never worried all that much about her wardrobe. In general, she stuck to the basics. Jeans and cute boots for everyday wear. Skirt and blouse for work.
If she was feeling daring, the jeans were skinny and the boots had a heel. Her work outfits, on the other hand, always tended toward the conservative. There hadn’t been much scope for daring, working as the office manager at a dental practice.
This morning she’d dressed to impress the client and Anna. After walking for ten minutes through the trendy area of San Francisco Anna had directed her to, Nora was painfully aware that she was a fashion failure. She felt like she was in a movie where a manic pixie dream girl with an endless range of cutesy vintage dresses took the city by storm.
Only, Nora wasn’t the dream girl. She was playing Drab Extra Number Four, whose general mousiness, baggy skirt and blouse with a ruffled neckline she’d known she couldn’t pull off, had been designed by the costume department to help the bright young star shine.
The street she was walking down was on the threshold of an area undergoing redevelopment. Maybe in a couple of years it would be a picturesque neighborhood that locals rushed to invest in and tourists rushed to explore, but right now, she’d crossed the invisible line of edgy-cool and was headed straight into seedy.
Warehouses loomed close by. The businesses she passed changed from boutique clothes shops and craft galleries to bars, gyms, and tattoo parlors. It was rougher than she was used to, but then, road trip aside, she was used to White Picket USA. So that wasn’t saying much.
She liked it.
A lot.
Not just the area, with its restless vibe. She liked that she didn’t fit in. She was wearing the wrong kind of clothes. It was obvious she wasn’t going to a gym, or a bar, or to get a tattoo. She probably looked like she’d been beamed down from a different planet.
And she didn’t give a crap. She strode along, soaking it all in.
It was early. The air was still cool and damp from the morning’s rain, but the sun was already warming things up. After dinner last night, Anna had dropped her at her apartment and given Nora the client’s address and a key to the property, telling her to meet there at eight o’clock sharp. “And if I’m late, go ahead and let yourself in, check out the space.”
Nora had looked at the key then back at Anna. “Is this a joke?” she’d said.
“Why?”
“Need I remind you that I haven’t had the best luck letting myself in to places?”
“You’re not going to walk in and find Mr. Sterling snuggling in postcoital bliss with his latest woman. He’s remodeling a warehouse. We’re pitching to decorate the apartment, but he doesn’t live there. He lives in the penthouse of his office building, a penthouse which I also get to redecorate if he’s pleased with this job.”
“Confirm it for me,” Nora had said. “He wants me to let myself in. And he absolutely won’t be there?”
“Confirmed. He’s meeting us at nine. I’m supposed to get a preliminary look first, so he can rush in, be all rich and imposing, order us about, then rush off again.”
She’d never been ordered about by a millionaire before. Sounded fun.
Nora heard the tread of purposeful footsteps and glanced across the street, having to turn a little since it came from behind her. There was plenty of other noise around but the purpose in those steps, or maybe it was their relentless rhythm, pulled her from her thoughts, demanding she take notice.
Take notice she did, and it was no hardship.
The man was big. He was over six feet tall, and well-built with it. She guessed he’d come from the gym a couple of buildings down; he was wearing black track pants with white stripes down the long legs, a forest-green T-shirt, and a half-zipped hoodie. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, and an aura of dangerous energy crackled around him. His dark blond hair was close-cropped, and he was gaining on her.
Nora picked up her pace. Then she mentally smacked herself. He wasn’t gaining on her, he was walking along, minding his own business. He wasn’t paying any attention to her whatsoever. He passed a group of stunning young women heading toward the gym he’d left, with their yoga mats and yoga pants and yoga bodies. To Nora’s surprise, he didn’t even give them a second look.
Unlike the women, most of whom turned and walked backward to get a view of his ass.
Yeah, if he didn’t notice the fit and glowing spandex-clad twentysomethings, he wasn’t going to spot the mousy thirtysomething with small boobs, a tweed skirt and ankle boots.
She’d been craning her neck to look back and keep him in view as she walked. Facing forward, she glanced at her wristwatch, and lengthened her stride.
“Hey.” The deep voice behind her made her jump, and she whirled around.
It was him. He’d crossed the street to her side and was about eight feet away.
Nora opened and shut her mouth, but before she could speak and ask if he was talking to her—a quick glance around suggested yes, since there was no one else in sight—his gaze flicked up. He closed the gap between them and she found herself pinned by a pair of intense green eyes.
Nora tried to say something coherent…and she gargled at him.
Gargled.
He raised his brows.
She coughed and pointed to herself. “Are you… Did you want…me? Are you talking to me?”
He shook his head.
Of course he’s not talking to you.
His eyelids flickered and his mouth firmed. “Hey,” he said again.
Nora jumped back a step at the rough, annoyed bark.
He opened his eyes wide at her, then tapped the slender device hooked over his ear. Not you, he mouthed. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his hoodie, took out a cell phone, and jiggled it at her.
She realized he’d come to a stop in front of her, and she was staring at his lips. An angry voice buzzed from the earpiece. She watched his stubbled cheek crease with an almost-dimple despite the yelling at the other end of the phone, and then he reached out to her.
His large, warm hand closed over her shoulder, he applied gentle pressure to shuffle her aside and…and she’d been gawking at him so hard he had to move her to get past.
Nora felt the heat scald her cheeks.
It got worse.
Rooted to the spot, she turned with him as he passed, like he was a freaking magnet and she was a loser. Clearly, that energy crackling around him had the power to wipe her higher cognitive functions.
He glanced down and she was hit with the full impact of those green eyes from a distance of mere inches. “Cute,” he said.
She gazed at his wide shoulders and broad back as he walked away. God, she wished he was talking to—
“Yeah,” he threw over his shoulder, “now I’m talking to you.” He caught her staring at his ass, laughed, and sauntered on.
Since he’d already caught her and laughed at her, she admired the view until he made a left into an alley two buildings up ahead, and was out of sight.
~ ~ ~
Anna wasn’t there when Nora arrived at the warehouse. She opened her Filofax, flipped to the page where she’d noted down the address, and double-checked it against the number spray-painted on the side of the building by the door.
Yep. She was in the right place.
She stuck the Filofax back in her purse and contemplated the crumbling brick facade. Huh.
The warehouse was covered in scaffolding, more than half the roof seemed to be open to the sky, and apart from the enormous and sparkling new windows on the top floor, every pane of glass in sight was either broken or cracked.
The number wasn’t the only thing spray-painted on the walls, either.
It didn’t look like the kind of building you’d find a millionaire in, but she supposed that was the point of redevelopment.
Nora rummaged around in her purse for the key Anna had given her—attached to an elegant keyring engraved with Holmes Squared, the name of Anna’s business—and turned it over in her hand a few times.
Should she go in? Or wait for Anna, who should be here any minute?
She’d wait.
After ten minutes of waiting, followed by a further five minutes avoiding eye contact with the army of contractors who drove up in a convoy of work vehicles and started climbing all over the scaffolding and yelling at each other, Nora decided to go on in.
The apartment Anna had been hired to decorate was at the top of the building. Nora eyed the old-fashioned freight elevator with foreboding, struggled to raise the cage front, and was relieved when she was obliged to give up and take the stairs instead.
The apartment was in a better state than she’d anticipated. It was already livable, in fact. It must have been the first stage of the redevelopment, she decided. Based on the rough exterior she’d expected holes in the floor and pigeons in the rafters, but while the rafters were visible overhead, there were no roosting birds, and no sky.
The central space was huge. A kitchen area to one side flowed into an enormous living area. A number of doorways opened off it.
A quick glance at the kitchen showed that it had already been fitted with appliances, including a complicated-looking piece of machinery that could be a coffee maker, although you’d probably need an advanced degree in engineering—or perhaps astronaut training—to operate it. Three stools were pushed up to the breakfast bar, and a battered couch and a pair of armchairs huddled in the middle of the living area.
The floor had been laid with scuffed hardwood boards, either the original or reclaimed. They were a soft, faded honey color, and had been left unpolished. Tipping her head back, Nora admired the ceiling. It was a cliché, she knew, all the exposed architectural features, the rafters and the ductwork, but it had a cool kind of steampunk feel to it.
Anna would probably clutch her pearls and insist it all be covered up. Nora hoped not.
She headed over to the east wall and the bank of wide windows, where the morning sun flooded in to lie in a lake of gold on the boards. Unable to resist, Nora jumped into the light as if it was a puddle and stood there with her face turned up, drinking it in.
She wondered if any of the rooms she hadn’t yet explored had a similarly stunning aspect. If this was her apartment, she’d make sure to have her bedroom somewhere the sun poured in like this. What a way to wake up.
Except it wasn’t hers, and she could never afford it.
After the dent the road trip had put in her savings, and considering the pitiful salary Anna was paying her, she wouldn’t be able to afford a place of her own ever. Let alone a millionaire’s warehouse.
Making a mental note to buy a lottery ticket the first chance she got, Nora dragged herself back to reality. Anna was now seriously late, and Mr. Sterling was due any minute. If Anna didn’t have time to look around before he arrived, Nora would have to cover. Otherwise she wouldn’t even have the pitiful salary, and she faced a future of slinking back to Beacon Falls, where she’d have the choice of living with her parents, or in her storage unit.
Toss-up as to which would be more embarrassing.
Two of the rooms opening off the central space were filled with a mess of lumber, tools and general construction junk. The third room, she walked into and stopped dead.
The guy with the fantastic ass was standing right there, in nothing but tattoos, a towel slung low around his hips, and a quizzical smile aimed her way.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Smile fading, he tilted his head a fraction.
Good grief. Come on. He’d made her stupid enough when he was dressed. Now, he was…
She’d never seen…
Okay, she’d seen, but not in real life. Not like this.
She’d called it. He was cut. He had definitely been on his way back from the gym.
Probably he lived in the gym.
He’d have to, to get those amazing muscles. His biceps were…wow…but the length of his arms meant they didn’t do that weird bulging thing. And his abs?
Holy. Shit.
She didn’t think guys in the real world had abs like that. Just guys in the movies, running around pretending to be Spartan warriors. The six-pack. The V disappearing under the towel…
“Hey there,” he said.
Nora’s gaze snapped back up to his face. She couldn’t quite read his expression. He looked amused, but there was something else mixed with the amusement, something unidentifiable.
“Are you my new stalker?” he continued. “Because I have to tell you, I will defend my virtue.”
Nora bolted.
She ran for the first exit in sight, slammed the door behind her, and pressed her back against it.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, hands to her cheeks. What the hell? Why did she run? Like a rabbit. What was she thinking?
And what was he doing here anyway, standing around flaunting his beautiful body in Mr. Sterling’s apartment? Which was supposed to be vacant!
She caught her breath. No. It couldn’t be.
Please. Please don’t let him be the client.
He was, though. She knew it. It made the most sense. He had to be Mr. Sterling, who was, in fact, living here despite what he’d told Anna. Or maybe he wasn’t living here, maybe he’d come from the gym to use the shower she was looking at right now.
Nora straightened.
She’d run into his bathroom. The air was still heavy with moisture from the shower he must have just stepped out of. Whatever body wash or soap he used, it smelled divine.
Now she was being creepy and smelling the client.
Do something, Nora told herself. Think. Salvage the situation.
She had to go out there and introduce herself, and then apologize. Yes. She’d do it. Any minute now. As soon as her face had cooled down and returned to something approaching a normal color.
On the other hand, she could always go out the window.
So it was three floors up. Big deal. There was scaffolding, right? She could climb down it and…and knowing her luck she’d fall, break something, and make more of an idiot of herself than she already had.
No, she wasn’t going to climb out the window. Tempting though it was.
She’d die in here instead.
Hearing a familiar voice on the other side of the door, Nora pressed her ear to the wood.
“Mr. Sterling.” It was Anna, sounding calm and unruffled.
He must have put his pants on.
Then again, Anna had the emotional maturity to not react like a sheltered Victorian spinster and run away when she saw a mostly-naked hot dude. She probably saw mostly-naked hot dudes all the time, and was smart enough not to run in the wrong direction.
“I am so sorry,” Anna was saying with a light laugh, “I hadn’t expected you to be here early, or for me to get here late. My apologies. I’ll let you finish dressing.”
His pants were still off, then.
“Hold up,” he said. “Quick question. You know anything about the girl who’s hiding in my bathroom?”
“Uh—”
“She’s not mine. I didn’t bring her here. Turned around, and there she was. Cute little thing. Looks like a librarian. I didn’t have a chance to get her name before she ran. Anyone you know?”
There was a beat of silence, and then Anna called out, “Nora?”
Nora faced the door. Resting both palms on it, she leaned her forehead against the cool wood in defeat. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m in the bathroom. What do you think I’m doing?”
There was another brief silence.
Nora processed her own words. Great. Sounded like she’d admitted to using the toilet.
She rushed to clarify. “I’m flossing. I had a flossing emergency. I have… I have spinach in my teeth.”
She flinched when Mr. Sterling’s deep voice came close from the other side of the door. “You ate spinach for breakfast?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. It’s an excellent choice of breakfast food. It is both tasty and nutritious. And it always gets stuck in your teeth. Everyone knows that. Anyway, I’m almost done flossing. I’ll be right out.”
There. She’d pulled it together. That was polite. That made sense.
“You sure you’re flossing? Not sitting bare-assed on the—”
“I’m flossing!”
“Okay then.”
The door handle turned and Nora realized with horror that she hadn’t locked it. The soles of her boots slid on the damp floor tiles as he pushed it open, scooting her backward even as she tried to brace it shut.
Nora backed up to the vanity and he strolled in, still with the towel around his hips, to crowd beside her. He took a toothbrush from the glass on the sink, squirted toothpaste on it, and started brushing his teeth, watching her watch him, wide-eyed, in the mirror.
After a moment he clamped down on the toothbrush, left it sticking out of his mouth, and turned to her, lifting her chin.
What was he doing?
Still holding her chin, he leaned away to get rid of the toothpaste and run the sink clean, then he dropped the brush back into the glass with a clink. His grip on her jaw was firm and warm. He squeezed.
Nora opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, and stuttered to a stop when he eased her head back and leaned in.
He was checking her teeth.
“You missed a bit,” he told her.
“I did not!” She tried to cover her mouth, but all she did was get her fingers tangled up with his.
“You did. It’s right there. I’m looking right at it. You missed a bit.”
Nora smacked his arm. He tightened his hold a fraction before he let go. “I did not,” she said indignantly. “I didn’t even eat spinach for breakfast!”
Shit.
He smiled down at her. “Damn cute,” he said.
The businesslike clip of Anna’s heels on the tiles broke the spell before Nora could do something even more stupid, like tell him he had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen.
“This is a great space for a bathroom,” Anna said. “I have a hundred ideas already.” She ducked around Mr. Sterling, wound an arm around Nora’s waist, and began to haul her away from him. “We’ll go and start making notes, let you get on. Let you get dressed. All right? Fabulous.”
She got them out of the bathroom and shut the door.
“Holy shit, Nora,” Anna said once there was a solid panel of wood between them and the all-important client Nora had just ogled, lied to, and—finale!—hit. “That was spectacular. Even for you.”