Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
She looked from the hole in her jeans to the piece of paper in front of her, but not into his eyes. He felt the loss of connection and it dismayed him. "I don't want you to sue me." Her voice was soft, but he could hear the frog in her throat.
He leaned back farther in his seat, crossed his ankle over his knee, and put his face in his hand as he continued to study her.
Natalie's pulse was beating so forcefully she could feel it ringing through her ears. She felt more than depressed, she felt beaten down, as if she had no power or control over her life. She felt a sudden sense of being totally at his mercy. And truthfully, she was.
And on top of that, she couldn't believe how austere he was. But he had called her 'sweetheart' a couple of times, and each time he did, a small kernel of heat slid through her system. It didn't go with what she knew of him and it confused her even more. His eyes were dark and his face was swarthy, filled with an emotion that was hidden from her. His hair was thick and a deep brown, almost black, and it was cut severely around his skull. From his name and his dark good looks, she imagined he was Italian, and she had to get a grip on her runaway emotions and force herself not to think of every mobster movie she'd ever seen.
He didn't look as if he intended to hurt her.
That, at least, was a good thing.
"You've been in Houston less than a week?" he asked.
His voice when he spoke was sudden, and it snapped Natalie out of the spell she was in. "Yeah, just a few days."
"Leave the small town to experience big city lights?" His voice was low with an almost teasing quality.
"Not exactly."
"Why, then?" He steepled his hands in front of his mouth and his tone dropped just enough to tell Natalie that he meant business. The teasing was over and now he wanted answers.
What could she tell him? Her family's private business was private, as well as a bit unsavory. She didn't want to think about it, much less talk about it with a virtual stranger. "It was time, I guess. I've never lived away from home, but now--"
"Now what?"
"N-nothing. I just wanted to find a better job, so I came to Houston."
"Any particular reason you need the income?"
What the heck did he expect her to say to that? That she had a fairy godmother somewhere, ready to dole out cash as needed? What planet was he from exactly? "I like to eat, wear clothes, have a roof over my head." Natalie looked somewhere to the right of his face, and tried with all her might not to sound sarcastic.
"Do you have a lot of debt?"
"Why are you asking me these questions?"
"I'm trying to figure out your situation. See what we can do to resolve the mess you're in."
She took a quivering breath at the reminder. "I don't have any debt. I don't have any credit cards. I have four hundred and sixty-eight dollars in my checking account, and about forty-five in my purse. That's the sum of my financial spreadsheet."
"Good. If you're telling me the truth--"
She broke in, "Why would I lie to you?"
The look he turned on her sent her heartbeat into a quivering mess. His eyes were hot and his voice when he spoke was edged with an emotion she couldn't identify but nevertheless, made the air around them fraught with tension. "Try not to interrupt me, Natalie. It tends to make me want to shut you up--and I'm not real sure you'd care for my method." His voice was guttural and the muscles of his neck, corded and laced with steel, were a quietly menacing threat. His expression was hard, piercing, and his eyes ran over her from top to bottom, and settled on her mouth.
Her heart raced and her palms became clammy.
The thought of the repercussions of defying him rendered her helpless in a wholly feminine way. "Yes, sir," she agreed softly, without a trace of sarcasm. He'd subdued her completely not so much with his tone but with his hot eyes as they ran over her, and her gaze dropped from his. Yeah, she so didn't want to be the recipient of his anger, or whatever form of punishment he was intimating, sexual or otherwise--no matter the blood pulsing between her thighs.
His eyes glittered, but he continued in the same vein as before. "If you're telling me the truth, and you don't have debt collectors on your butt, in fact have no debt at all, and you haven't signed a lease for an apartment--" He looked at her with a question in his eyes and she softly shook her head. ". . . then there's no reason we can't work this out between us."