Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“I’m Ryder Slater.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “Welcome to the auto family, Ina.”
“Thanks, Ryder.” I smiled at him. “If ye don’t mind me askin’, where are ye from?”
“New York and you?”
“County Carlow,” I answered. “You’re seriously tall.”
“I’m the same height as these assholes—excuse me, these knuckleheads.”
He was lying. He had a couple of inches on Dante and the other men in the garage, except JJ, who looked the same height as him. With Dante suddenly on my mind, I glanced around but couldn’t see him.
“I better get goin’,” I said to Ryder, JJ, and Gavin, who walked out of a room at the back of the hangar. “I’ve got some work clothes to buy.”
All three of the men grinned at me—all fecking three of them.
“Will ye say goodbye to Dante for me and also say a massive thank-you? He’s a real sweetie for helpin’ me get this job.”
Gavin was about to speak, but JJ nudged him, and he stopped before he even started.
“We’ll tell him.” JJ winked. “See ye Monday.”
“Bye, lads.”
I turned and walked out of the hangar, and I prayed that I didn’t trip and fall because I could feel the eyes of the three men burn into my back as I strode away. When I was out of sight, I did a little happy dance, then clutched the strap of my bag tighter and headed in the direction of the bus stop. I needed to get some work clothing and heels, but I didn’t have a lot of money, so I had no choice but to go to one place where I knew I could get what I needed and not have to worry about selling a kidney.
Pennys.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Date
* * *
Ina O’Shea had fucked my head up.
I met the woman briefly. Both of my encounters with her had lasted no more than ten minutes. Ten. Fucking. Minutes. That was all, and I was acting out of sorts. It was embarrassing to be behaving like a little schoolboy with his first crush. I had sex with cock-hardening women almost daily, and not once did I carry on this way. Even when I was having casual sex with Alannah Ryan, I didn’t have this instant connection. I didn’t know what it was about Ina and her pretty face that made me think of her for the past forty-eight hours, but I couldn’t stop.
As soon as I clocked out of work on Saturday, I headed straight home. As it was the weekend, my brothers expected me to go with them to the pub, but I declined with the excuse that I was tired. I was tired ... tired of not getting my fill of my spectacle-wearing neighbour. I wanted to see her, so I hung around my apartment doing nothing all night in the hopes that I might just bump into her in the hallway. It was pathetic.
It didn’t happen, though.
She had obviously gotten home before I finished work and stayed in all evening. I was tempted to text her and congratulate her on landing the receptionist’s job and invite her out to dinner to celebrate that win, but I didn’t want to seem like I was thinking about her on a Saturday night, so I didn’t. I tossed and turned all night until I woke up the following morning feeling exhausted. Sunday passed by in a slow haze as well.
The garage was closed on Sundays.
I knocked on Ina’s door at a quarter to nine on Monday morning to see if she’d like a lift to work, but I got no answer, which told me she had already left. I pulled up outside of the garage at two minutes to nine. I jumped out of my brand-new Ford Ranger Stormtrak that I had just bought a month ago. I had spent three years saving up so I could buy a truck outright instead of carrying around a monthly payment, and it was the best decision I had ever made. Twirling my keys around my fingers, I strolled straight into the half-open shutter at bay one, where my brothers were crowded around someone.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Date?” Gavin turned with a shit-eating grin. “We were just wishin’ Ina the best of luck on her first day.”
I opened my mouth to do the same, but when Harley and JJ stepped aside and gave me a full view of my itty-bitty neighbour, my fucking legs nearly buckled from under me. She had on a navy pencil skirt with a matching waist-length blazer draped over her arm. Her tight white blouse had silver-coloured buttons that caught the sunlight.
It was fitted. God in Heaven, it was so fucking fitted. The clothing Ina wore the first two times I’d been in her company did not do her body justice in any way, shape, or form. Her hips were wide, and her waist was narrow. The suit hugged her body in a way that I wanted to and one day would.