“I’ve never heard of that breed,” Hunt stated.
“I hadn’t either and I asked my client about it, which was a huge mistake. He spent twenty minutes telling me about the puppy’s bloodline and how much it cost.”
“Give me the one-minute version.”
“White, double-layer coat, originally from Siberia, intelligent, sociable and inquisitive. Very, very rare and this puppy cost the equivalent of a medium-sized car.”
Hunt raised his eyebrows. “And you have to get it from California to Japan? How? In a crate?”
Adie’s wide mouth curved and her smile hit her eyes. Hunt felt like he was witnessing the birth of a new star, the rearrangement of a faraway galaxy.
He sucked in a breath, looking for air.
“My clients’ pets don’t go in crates, Hunter. No, I found a dog walker who was prepared to collect the puppy and fly with him, on a private jet hired for the occasion, from Los Angeles to Osaka.”
“Wow.”
Adie pushed her hands through her hair and tugged at the hem of her dress. “Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep last night so I thought I’d just close my eyes for a minute. I didn’t expect to get brained by a briefcase.”
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Hunt replied. Her hand went down to the hem of her dress and he captured the fabric between his thumb and index fingers, idly rubbing the soft material. “And, trust me, I have no problem looking at your legs.”
Adie blushed, then sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes, staring into his, were filled with a mixture of lust and confusion. He wondered which emotion would win.
“This is crazy, Hunt.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Hunt agreed. “I take one look at you and all the blood in my brain heads south. All I can think about is getting you naked and making you mine.”
Adie covered her face with her hands, but through the cracks in her fingers, he saw her complexion turn pink. He couldn’t remember when last he’d seen a woman blush. It wasn’t something that happened much anymore.
And Hunt was super curious to know how far down her blushes extended.
“I want you, Adie. You want me too.”
“Well, duh,” Adie muttered. “But it’s not that simple, Hunt.”
Hunt could see her looking for an excuse and knew she was going to say that he was her client, that they should be professional, that this could get complicated. Hunt decided to cut down her arguments before she could voice them. “We’re old enough and smart enough to keep work and our attraction separate, Adie. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Theoretically,” Adie replied. “But it never quite works out that way, does it?”
“If we want it to, it will,” Hunt assured her. But instead of looking more relaxed, Adie’s shoulders were up around her ears and she twisted a funky, vintage ring around the middle finger of her right hand. Something was really bugging her...
Oh, hell. Somehow Hunt knew she must’ve heard, or read, about Griselda’s presence in his life and that she’d added two and two and reached pi.
Dammit.
Adie’s next words confirmed his suspicions. “You have someone in your life, Hunt. And I don’t like the idea of being the other woman.”
Okay, he was going to strangle Kate with his bare hands because she was the only one who would’ve mentioned Griselda, the only person with the temerity to interfere in his business. The little brat!
“I don’t have a relationship with Griselda.”
Adie’s eyebrows lifted, silently telling him not to BS her. “Not that there was anything to end, but I called it off a couple of days before I met you.”
Adie cocked her head to the side. “How can you end something that is un-endable?”
Hunt smiled at her made-up word. And how could he explain Griselda to Adie without sounding like a complete dog? Griselda had been convenient and Griselda considered him equally convenient... They were each a resource the other used. So much so that Griselda had propositioned him with the idea of being her sperm donor.
God, he’d barely given that idea, or Griselda, any thought since he’d met Adie. In fact, Adie was currently occupying all of his mental energy. It was a very unusual situation.