Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
He looked at her, his eyes hiding more from her than usual, before they dropped and slid down the length of her body, pausing at her breasts, caressing the line of her waist. She felt that look like a hand skimming over her and shuddered at even the thought of Cam’s intimate touch. Something heated up between them, fogging her judgment. It felt like attraction. Felt like chemistry. Felt like something she had hoped for before with Cam but knew she’d never have.
Jo shook off the effects of that look, wondering if she was going a little crazy. Maybe her feverish mind, always hot and usually bothered around Cam, had conjured that moment. It wouldn’t be the first time she read too much into a look or a feeling with this man. For example, at Christmas, she had sensed…she had thought…she had hoped…but nothing had materialized. Cam had gone dark, and she hadn’t heard from him until today.
She was just about to clear her throat, but he beat her to it.
“I’m staying at the Chevalier.”
Wow. Jo knew that between the inheritance Aunt Kris had left him and the money his art had generated over the last year or so, Cam had to be sitting pretty, but hearing he was staying at the Chevalier still surprised her. People like Walsh wore wealth. Not as clothing, but as skin. As scent. It had been woven into the fibers of who they were since birth. Walsh could walk into a room naked and you’d assume he came from money. It was in his bearing. In the way he looked at the world like he owned most of it, because in some ways, he did. Jo knew this because she was the same.
Even though Jo, with her trained eye, recognized the fine Italian leather of the boots hiding under Cam’s weathered jeans, she knew Cam didn’t carry wealth the way she and Walsh did. He never seemed uneasy with it. More like he’d simply added it to all the other baggage he was carting around.
“The Chevalier, huh?” Jo turned down the corners of her mouth and offered a ladylike grunt. “I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. A…uh…friend has a suite there, and she’s letting me crash.”
That was more like it. The sizzling moment she had imagined with Cam moments before fizzled into nothing. She’d watched a parade of women march through Cam’s life for more than a decade. Not shocking that some woman was so enamored she’d offer him a suite at one of the most luxurious hotels in the world.
“You sure it’s okay for me to stay?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s in Paris.” Cam pushed away from the glass, linked his arm through Jo’s, and started toward the elevators. “She’s not coming to the States until next week, and she wouldn’t mind anyway. There’s two bedrooms in the suite.”
“I’ll just call Pierce, Uncle Martin’s driver.” Jo pulled her phone from her bag. “He picked me up and has my things. We can bum a ride to the hotel if you want.”
“Sounds great.” Cam glanced once more over his shoulder at the infants behind the glass. “I need a drink. I didn’t see my day turning out like this.”
Seeing Cam after he’d ignored her for the last six months. Witnessing Walsh’s twin girls come into the world. The day had held more than one surprise. And she couldn’t prove it, but she felt like there might be more to come.
Chapter Four
Cam followed Jo down the silk-wallpapered passageway toward the Chevalier suite he’d occupied the last few days. How could he not notice the way her ass corrupted the straight and narrow line of the dress so beautifully, her body firm and cursive beneath the clinging fabric? Jo had never been a small woman. Five feet ten shoeless, and looking him right in the eye in her four-inch heels. Her breasts, just enough to overflow his palms. Her legs, infinite and sleekly muscled. Everything was tight and lean. But her ass? A lush anomaly. An exaggerated curve from the trim line of her back. You couldn’t help but marvel at it. You would have thought it was Stonehenge the way his cock responded. Hard and ready and in awe.
It was torture and it was foolishness to ask her to stay with him tonight.
Not with him. In the suite. The two-bedroom suite.
He’d known this thing was stirring in him at Christmas. This compulsion to look and to wonder how things would be with Jo wasn’t a new fight. He’d fought it at fifteen when Jo invited him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. When she’d suggested they attend senior prom together. When with every look she told him he had a chance. He wasn’t oblivious to what Jo felt. He just knew better. Would it be good with her? Probably addictively good, but Jo had always been, besides Ms. Kris, the stalwart supporter in his life. The one he could count on to think the best of him, even at his worst.