“Here she is. Sydney Underhill. It’s a match made in heaven. Kept their romance a secret this whole time, even shocked us with it, but she’s here now. They’ve been friends since they were kids. It’s the perfect love story with the perfect happy ending.”
The words happy and ending received significant stress and Jesse winced.
He finally realized that Syd was too shell shocked to do anything. He had to, for once, be the one who saved her before everything went to shit in a handbasket and his entire world was a brown poo coated version of what could have been if Sydney was serious when she wrote that status. He wasn’t going to let anything ruin the one shot he might have.
Not even his mom and her insane version of matchmaking.
He practically felt her arrow shred his heart, but she was no Cupid and she was going to drive Syd away before he ever had a chance to get close to her.
Jesse acted fast, without thinking. He mumbled something that he didn’t even catch, stepped forward and shoved his hand into the recording camera’s lens, knocking it askew without causing any damage. While the leach on the other end cursed and tried to refocus his shot, he sidestepped his mom, wrapped his hand around Sydney’s wrist, gave the reporters a wave and Martin a pleading look, and ran, yes, ran, practically dragging Syd behind him until he thrust her through the front door and locked it behind him.
“What the actual fuck,” she panted, her voice dripping with barely restrained rage that echoed through the massive foyer.
Through the whole house really. It was a new construction and he’d moved in and barely got around to hiring someone to furnish the place. The walls were still stark, and the rooms were so huge that they dwarfed the few pieces of furniture he actually did have.
Yeah. That pretty much summed everything up. What the actual fuck had just happened out there?
CHAPTER 6
Sydney
Fudging pineapples, I’m hungover. It must be a new brand of hungover too, because Sydney had never experienced anything like it. Her boobs were sweating. Seriously. Her boobs. Her armpit area was soaked, and she was afraid to lift her arms because of the pancake sweaty marks that were probably hiding there like a darn snake in the grass, ready to spring on some unsuspecting individual and kill them with their grossness. She kept them glued to her body as she walked penguin style away from the foyer with the huge glassed-in modern looking closet and the beautiful tile work on the floor, ceiling, and wall, like only the trifecta will do for a house of this caliber.
In the damn entrance, for goodness sakes.
Without being asked or invited, because they were probably beyond that, she flopped down on a huge leather couch. It looked like it was imported from Italy. When she reached out and smoothed her palm over the fine leather, it definitely felt that way too.
Jesse slowly crept into the room like a shadowy thing from her nightmares.
Except things that went bump in the night didn’t look like Jesse.
All she could say, as her eyes took in the crisp white dress shirt with the rolled-up sleeves, and those black slacks and expensive shoes, was that Jesse had really grown up in the ten years since she’d seen him last. He’d always been a little on the thin side, the geeky side. Well, heck. He’d lost the glasses. Probably paid to have laser eye surgery. Lost the baggy hoodies and jeans that never fit well.
And god, those forearms. Strong. Muscular. Striated veins. Crisp dark hairs. Those forearms could be the death of her if she let them.
His face wasn’t any better. Seriously. It was damn murder material. He’d filled out a little in ten years and in a good way, like he hit the gym four hours a day, every single day, kind of way. His shoulders were broader than she remembered, his chest thicker, his waist just as trim, but his legs strong and muscular under those slacks. He looked more like his brother did when the guy was on the football team in high school. Athletic. Lean, but in a powerful sort of way. He reminded her of a predator, a mountain lion or something. Not that she’d ever seen one before, but in the pictures, they looked sleek and rippled with muscles. And they were beautiful.
Damn it! She didn’t want to notice that kind of thing about Jesse, but he had a nice face. He’d always had a nice face in a cute way, but now he had a nice face in a hot way too. In the chiseled cheekbones and jawline, piercing blue eyes, high forehead and proud nose kind of way. His hair was cut just right, shorter on the sides, slightly longer on top, but not in the hipster up-cut kind of way that every other person seemed to be getting. He looked fashionable. He looked expensive.