Page 8 of When We Had Forever
Shit.If that’s him, this is my last chance.
I take off running. The car powers through the lot, gravel fountaining from its tires, making me think there’s definitely a man behind the wheel.
I reach the lot’s exit. The Audi TT jerks to a stop mere inches from my knees, all throaty rumble and sparkling jay-blue paint. Reflected sunlight glares off the windshield.
I shade my eyes. A power window whirrs down, barely audible over the hiss-crash of waves against the nearby beach.
“Michael Drake?” I shout. “Is that you?”
A low laugh answers. “Maybe. Depends on whether you have any pies with you this time.”
The smoke-and-bourbon voice spills warmth through me. I spring toward the driver’s side. He doesn’tsoundlike he’s going to refuse me. “Oh, thank god. My friend’s car died this morning, and I ran all the way here, hoping you could—”
When Michael looks up through his open window, the rest of my sentence flies off into the sunshine.
Jesus.
He’s got one of those faces made from bold, sharp lines—angled jaw, squared chin, prominent cheekbones. I gape for a good five seconds before noticing the gentler touches like generous lips and a faintly upturned nose, and then I just keep staring. Between the hard lines and the soft ones, there’s something intensely...beautifulabout this guy, yet with his rough, masculine edges, I would never actually use that word to describe him.
And those eyes—glimpses of a welcoming ocean, fringed by long lashes. They seem to record the depths of my inner reaction, as if he sees straight through to some private core.
“Hoping I could what?” he says.
My breath gets lost trying to find my lungs. “What?”
A smile plays around his mouth. Hair the color of old, age-worn gold curves over his forehead, which he reaches up to brush back. “You were hoping I could what?”
“Um...” I blink my way from my stupor. Guys like this don’t stroll through Seagrove every day. Or any town, for that matter. “Take me to Seattle.”
He smirks. “What do I look like, some kind of altruist?”
The truth rolls off my tongue before I can stop it. “God, no. You look like you shouldn’t even know what that word means.”
“Wow.” He laughs. “Thanks. First you hit me with a pie, then you tell me I look dumb. I’m starting to think I’ve offended you somehow.”
Heat stains my cheeks. “No, I didn’t mean...” Yesterday, I assumed he was hitting on me, but looking at him now, that’s so very obviously not the case that I can only laugh at my own arrogance. Out loud.
He raises an eyebrow. “And now you’re laughing at me.Mockingly, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s not that. I didn’t come here to insult you, or beg for charity. I just need some help. I can pay, if that helps.”
His tropical eyes glitter. “Now you think I need your money?”
I scan the car, which probably costs more than most people make in a year, then his shiny, gilded hair. I bet his shampoo alone is worth more than my entire makeup collection. “Um...”
“You know what?” He waves a hand. “Don’t answer that. Just throw your bag in back. You have to be in Seattle by eleven, right?”
My mind blanks. I can’t imagine how he knows that. But then I remember his above-and-beyond attention to detail yesterday.Takes one to know one, writer girl.
Must be an architect thing.
“I really, really do.” I forcibly unfreeze myself, then toss my suitcase into the trunk, slip into the car, and snick the door shut. Michael rolls up his window, sealing us into a cocoon of chilled black leather and tinted glass.
He watches me click my seat belt, his expression curious and assessing and...something else I can’t pin down. I pointedly ignore it and punch Rosalie’s address into the navigation. A blue line appears on the map: “Time to destination: 3:02.”
I fixate on the path to my freedom, which will deliver me a mere nine minutes late. I only have to get through three hours and two minutes in close quarters with an absurdly gorgeous architect who may or may not be the world’s biggest asshole.
Worth it.
