Page 7 of Savored Sins
Trey gives the most exaggerated sigh I’ve ever heard—which is saying something as we’ve been friends for fifteen years now.
“Okay,no. He’s notscrawny. He’s got some long, lean, beautiful, tanned fucking muscles—there, I admit it, you happy?—but that doesn’t change a single other thing about what I just said, and you know it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say, still laughing. I push Trey down the hall toward the second guest room, the one without the bumps in the night. “Seriously, Trey, you don’t need to worry—I’m a big girl. I’m perfectly capable of finding a guy sexually attractive without hopping into bed with him.”
“I know…” Trey stops at the door of the guest room, his voice trailing off. It could just be the shadows from the bathroom night light, but he looks suddenly thoughtful. “Wait. Autumn. I just had an idea.”
“Okay…?”
“Well, Zeke’s pretty close to the same build as Nico Brooks. And he’s also pretty hot, right? And people know who he is—like, he’s got a pretty big following online. What if you got Zeke to model your menswear line in the show? I bet he’d do it.”
I scoff. “Didn’t you just call him a man-child?”
“Yeah, but you need a model for your show, and I think we just established that thatman-childis objectively hot enough tobe a model. And really, you’re letting him live in your cabin. He already owes you?—”
“Alright, I’ll think about it,” I say, cutting Trey off. The more I think about Zeke, the more I realize that it is absolutelyimperativeI not be reminded of his physical proximity to me in this moment. There’s no telling what I might do.
“Get some sleep,” Trey says. He nods at me, then disappears into the guest room and shuts the door behind him.
I walk back down the hallway toward my own bedroom, a weird sort of electricity that I haven’t felt in quite a while buzzing through my body. I’m still irritated at Zeke for waking us up, but I’m even more irritated at him for looking so damn sexy while doing it.
As I enter my bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me, I let my mind go. I don’t know yet about Trey’s suggestion regarding my fashion show, but I do know one thing: I’m glad to finally be alone in the dark, with nothing but my hand and the mental image of Zeke lounging lazily in the doorway.
No way in hell am I going back to sleep any time soon. And for once it’s not going to be because of the ghost that I’m pretty sure haunts the guest room.
five
AUTUMN
Trey: What’d you decide about the man-child?
Autumn: That he’d probably leave mid-show to bang one of the other models in an alley.
Trey: So we’ll put an ankle bracelet on him. Problem solved.
Even though I did manage to fall asleep again last night—yes, after stroking myself free of the mental image of Zeke’s devilish smile—I’m still pretty groggy by the time I roll up downtown and whip my car into a parking spot across from my boutique. I don’t even know why I bother to get here on time with the sparse smattering of customers I get across the span of a week—most of whom don’t even end up buying anything—but I’m trying to be professional. You know, fake it ’til you make it and all that.
I sit in the car a moment, finally sending Trey the contact info for the tech crew I hired to man my show, and then check the time. There’s still fifteen minutes until I need to open the shop, and it’s already been—checks notes—one whole hour since Trey and I sat at the counter sipping our respective cups of coffee before he hit the road back to Boston. Hawthorne Bay’s sole coffee shop, Brewed Awakening, is just down the street, and after last night, I’m going to need all the caffeine I can get. I deserve it.
I step out from my Mercedes, and no sooner have the heels of my leather ankle boots hit the sidewalk than a woman two cars down spins to face me. She peers at me over the top of her sleek sunglasses, and my heart sinks.
Because would it really be a Monday morning after a sleepless night without a chance encounter with one’s former mother-in-law? Fucking awesome.
“Autumn,hi,” Susan Carroway croons as she clips along up the sidewalk toward me. She’s impeccably dressed, her blonde hair straightened and sprayed to perfection. When she smiles at me, though, with that tight-lipped grimace of hers, I’m glad to see at least her lipstick’s starting to feather.
“Hey, Sue,” I nod, trying to appear friendly. Sue and I have never been close—probably because there was nothing I could possibly do to measure up to the mythical woman she felt her precious son deserved—but I’ve always tried to be nice. Next to the insane wealth of the Carroway family, which I’m no longer a part of, niceness is the only currency I have. “How’re you this morning?”
“Oh, I’m wonderful—just wonderful.” Sue brushes her bangs out of her eyes with a manicured hand. “Patrick was in town this weekend, so we flew up to the Maine house on Saturday to host a dinner. Got to hear all about that interesting start-up he’s funding now.”
God, these people. I forgot about the Maine house.
What a world.
“That’s great,” I say. “I’m off for coffee. It’s nice seeing you, Sue.”
“Sure, darling,” Sue says, cocking her head at me with a pitying smile. My heart clenches. “And listen—I just want you to know how sweet we all think it is. You know, that you’re still chugging along with your little hobby even though the going’s rough. Very inspiring.”
I can’t stop myself. “Excuse me?”
