Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Instinct told her no. That he’d just thrown it on.
But instincts weren’t always enough when it came to men, right?
When Burgess was five yards from the table, Tallulah shot to her feet with the brightest smile she could muster and held out her hand for a shake. “Burgess. It’s so nice to see you again.” She pressed her toes into the soles of her ankle boots when their hands connected, coarse into smooth, twisting the ball of her foot into the soft leather, because the clash of awareness and misgivings was so peculiar. And noisy. She could hear herself swallow.
Dang, he was tall. Mean appearance, collected demeanor. So confusing.
“I’m so sorry, but unfortunately I won’t be able to take the au pair position, after all.”
Chapter Two
“I’m so sorry, but unfortunately I won’t be able to take the au pair position, after all.”
Burgess was so busy trying to put a lid on his physical reaction to this woman those words almost didn’t reach his brain. That sentence had a lot of hurdles over which to leap, starting with the way her scent smacked him in the senses like a puck to the chin. A few years back, he’d been forced to attend the wedding of one of his teammates and they’d had a signature cocktail. He’d felt like an ogre holding the ridiculous crystal glass between his thumb and index finger for the toast, sort of how he’d used to feel having tea parties with Lissa, but the taste of the drink had been unusual enough to stick with him.
Blood orange and basil.
That’s what Tallulah smelled like. Fresh and sensual.
As they shook hands—and she apparently gave her notice to quit before she even started—he could taste the orange in the back of his throat. And speaking of throats, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off hers, because she seemed to be having a very difficult time swallowing, if the visible knot below her chin was any indication. Her palm was a little damp, too, which didn’t bother Burgess, a man who spent hours every week surrounded by sweaty athletes and their, oftentimes, putrid stenches. Hell, their goalie had a good luck jockstrap that he didn’t wash during winning streaks. Sweaty palms were a pleasure.
But why did she have them?
Their meeting in California had gone in three stages.
One: he’d been caught off guard by her beauty. The almond shape of her bottomless brown eyes, framed by sweeping black brows and brimming with intelligence, inquisitiveness, kindness. The tan glow of her complexion, the way she wrinkled her nose to acknowledge someone’s point. All of her. Later, he’d found out about her Turkish heritage and that she was born in Istanbul, where her family still resided . . . and he’d Googled whether or not they played hockey in Turkey, immediately feeling like a jackass.
Two: he’d been further blown away by her sense of humor and ability to connect so easily with his daughter, which was no easy feat. He was considering hiring a parenting coach at this point. These days, the kid was either outright ignoring him or crying hysterically.
Three: he’d realized Tallulah was eleven years his junior, a future grad student who had plans to get plugged into the Boston social scene—thus, his polar opposite—and promptly categorized her as someone who would be inappropriate for him to pursue romantically.
Labeling her off-limits, however, hadn’t stopped him from offering her a room and a job in his apartment, but yeah. His uncharacteristic impulsiveness that afternoon was a discussion for a different day. The topic on the table was the fact that she’d already decided to quit—and after spending a week debating whether an aspiring marine biologist would prefer her pillows firm or floppy, he wanted to know why.
Burgess set down his Protein Avalanche smoothie and took a seat at Tallulah’s table, waiting for her to sit down across from him, which she did after a moment. He considered the stiff set to her shoulders, the way she continued to grip the handle of her suitcase, and decided he didn’t like any of it.
With a quick clear of his throat, he leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “You packed and got all the way to my smoothie shop before deciding to quit. What happened?”
She slowly sat down, wet her lips, her eyes dropping briefly to her phone. “I’d prefer not to say.”
“Is it the neighborhood? You don’t like it?”
“The neighborhood is gorgeous,” she scoffed, looking out the window toward The Beacon, where he resided on the top floor. “The building is lovely, too. I’m starting to regret choosing marine biology over professional hockey.”
His grunt passed for a laugh. This was the person he remembered from lunch. Direct and clever. A little self-deprecating. Wildly unique. I should let her quit. It would be easier on my sanity to not have this beautiful girl sleeping under my roof.