10. Lottie #2
“Is this you trying to be romantic?” I joked, stepping up toward the blanket and plopping myself down ass first. I pulled off my boots one by one, setting them off to the side in the dry dirt so I wouldn’t get mud on the leather. This blanket probably cost more than my car , I thought to myself .
“If you want to call it that, you can.” Hunter unbuttoned the front of his suit jacket and let it slide from his shoulders. I glared at him. “I’m not undressing, Lottie. Calm down.”
“You know, we could’ve just hung out in my shared office.
I doubt Hank would have even noticed.” I leaned back on my hands and stretched my legs in front of me.
I was grateful for the break from the stables and pounds of research that Hank was making me pour through, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“I should just let him retire now. But he’s the only one who knows the job well enough to show you the ropes and pass off the reins.
” Hunter chuckled lightly as he looked over at me, the sun catching the high points of his face.
It made him look even more unreal, more unnaturally attractive.
It was a goddamn crime that he existed, like some kind of sick, twisted temptation dangling from a fishing line.
“But I thought maybe coming out here, away from everything, could, I don’t know…
help us get more on the same page, help you to calm down and clear your mind. ”
“I don’t need to calm down.”
Hunter snorted. “Okay. Sure you don’t.”
He flipped the lid of the basket open and plucked out two whole baguettes, a slightly messy cheese platter, and a bottle of champagne.
“You are absolutely trying to be romantic.”
He laughed as he broke off a piece of the baguette and loaded it with one of the soft cheeses. The muscles in his hands flexed and tightened as he worked, and my God, they were transfixing to watch. His hands were made to touch skin, to hold, to be held, to push those fingers inside of me?—
“Charlotte?”
I blinked away the images. He held out the slice to me, his brows furrowed, his gaze locked on my face. “Sorry,” I mumbled, gently taking the piece of cheese-covered bread without touching him.
I desperately needed to get a hold of myself.
We fell into an uncomfortable silence where he passed me pieces of bread, cheese, and a glass of champagne.
I tried to distract myself with the view, with the chirping of the birds, with the soft breaths of the horses behind us.
It was enough to calm the stress of the curt glances and whispered gossip of the staff, as well as the worry about my father finding out.
But it wasn’t enough to take me away from the insistent buzzing of the phone in my pocket.
Every hour on the hour at a minimum, he texted me.
I’d rather it was Hunter.
Each one was a demand or a warning about Hunter, a scare tactic to try to get me to put space between me and him.
There was only one person I knew who would do something like this, whether out of spite or just sheer desperation to get me back—my ex.
The one that had driven me out of the goddamn contiguous United States because I couldn’t bear the harassment.
The one that made me feel ten inches tall for deciding that he was too much.
The one who could jeopardize everything I would gain by doing this for Hunter.
“When you were a kid,” Hunter started, finally drawing my attention away from my spiraling thoughts, “what did you want to be when you grew up?”
Our eyes met as I dug through my mind, past the pool of stress and down further into the recesses, the bits I’d locked away for years.
“A plastic surgeon,” I chuckled. “Mom wanted me to be a doctor. But I didn’t want to go into general medicine so I told her I’d specialize in plastic surgery instead.
She thought it was the funniest thing ever.
She told me I could do her Botox when she got old.
” The grin I’d had slowly fell, the realization of why I’d locked that memory away hitting me hard.
“Obviously, that wouldn’t have worked out. ”
His lips formed into a fine line, a rare sincerity showing in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged off his apology and downed the rest of my champagne, holding out the empty flute for a refill. “What did you want to be? CEO of the Harris agricultural empire?”
He laughed as he filled my glass. “Surprisingly, no.”
“What, then?”
“I wanted to be a chef, actually.” He leaned back on his elbows, his body angled toward me.
It felt strange sitting up higher than him, as if he was bringing himself below me to prove some kind of point.
“My mom was always the cook in the family. I took an interest when I was about seven, maybe? And it spiraled from there. Cooking, baking, broiling, smoking—making interesting flavor combinations was better than playing with any toy.”
The thought of a little version of Hunter adorned with a white apron and a chef’s hat nearly made me spit out the champagne I’d just sipped. “Sorry,” I said, wiping the dribble from my lips and calming the little giggle that had escaped. “Why didn’t you go to culinary school then?”
He rolled to his side and cast his eyes out toward the sun as it hovered just above the mountaintop.
“I didn’t intend to abandon it. My father thought it would be beneficial to work for the company for a while to get some experience.
But when I saw how poorly my brother was handling everything, I decided to stay on longer, and longer turned into never leaving.
” His grip tightened around his champagne glass, and I noticed a ticking in his jaw.
“So now I either take on the company for my father or watch my brother run it into the ground.”
I didn’t know what to think about what he had just shared with me. It made him appear more human, vulnerable, instead of the cocky playboy that I always saw him as. “That doesn’t sound like much of a choice.”
Slowly, he shifted his body again. He placed his head in the center of my crossed legs, right in my lap, as if it was the most natural thing he could’ve done.
I didn’t move away and I couldn’t wrap my head around why.
I didn’t mind the proximity of him, the warmth of him resting against my muck-covered overalls. It was… nice.
“It’s not,” he sighed. “But I’d rather take on the responsibility now and figure something else out down the line than let my father’s life’s work end with him.”
Before I could even comprehend what I was doing, my hand found itself in the short tufts of his hair at the top of his head. Each black strand was far too enticing, far too soft. Similar to what my exterior was becoming.
The feeling bubbling up inside of me was all too familiar. I knew damn well it was a curse and not a gift. I’d been burned harshly too many times before to let it fully develop again.
I would not allow myself to fall for Hunter Harris. I would not let him under my skin or between my sheets. There was something there, and that ticking clock would only get louder buried in the belly of a crocodile. I would fight it for six months, and then I would have my peace.
Make it through six months. That’s all I had to do. It couldn’t be that hard.
But the shimmer in his deep green eyes told me that I was in for more than I bargained for.