Looking Inside

Maybe because she was aware that her hair and makeup would only get minimal attention with the time constraint, she chose to wear Caddy’s clothes to make up for the lack. She picked a pair of designer jeans that clung to her legs, hips and ass like a second skin, a white blouse, which she wore untucked, and a seemingly demure white button-down sweater that wasn’t at all innocent in the way it clung to her waist and breasts. Feeling restored from her nap and shower, she chose a pair of fun red heels with an ankle strap and fluffed her hair. It’d been unusually warm when she’d left her parents’ house earlier, and she was just going next door, so she left her coat in the closet. She grabbed her purse and hurried out of the condo.

She saw Jimmy immediately through the windows of Trey’s lobby. He was checking his phone—probably looking for a text from her, explaining her lateness. He stood just outside the entrance to Gold Coast.

“Sorry I’m late,” she called across the lobby breathlessly after she’d pushed through the revolving doors. Jimmy looked up from his phone.

“Eleanor.”

Eleanor halted in her tracks on the granite tile floor, her mouth falling open in confusion. A man had said her name, but Jimmy’s lips hadn’t moved. She looked in the direction of the voice.

Trey Riordan stood at the doorman’s station. He leaned against the counter, his tall body relaxed as though he’d been having a conversation with Ralph before she’d stormed into the lobby.

Shit.

For a stretched second, she just stared at him stupidly. He slowly straightened and faced her.

“I thought you were planning to be in Rockford over the weekend,” she said numbly when he began to walk toward her. He glanced down over her. A shiver ran through her when she saw how hard and serious he appeared, how intense his stare on her was. He looked incredible, all tawny and sinuous, his golden brown hair sexily mussed and the shadow of whiskers on his jaw and upper lip. He wore jeans and a long black winter coat. His blue eyes looked especially vivid in his whiskered, tanned face.

“I came back early.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but glanced to her right instead, distracted. She realized Jimmy had approached.

“Oh . . . this is Jimmy Garcia. Jimmy, Trey Riordan,” she managed. She saw Jimmy flash her a brief, stunned glance before he put out his hand to shake with Trey. Trey remained stony-faced as they shook. Eleanor knew he was physically imposing, of course, but she was quickly learning he could be intimidating, as well. As warm and easygoing as she knew he could be at times, he could be just as easily cool and daunting. She supposed it made sense. He hadn’t created a multimillion-dollar company from nothing by coming off as a pushover. At the moment, he peered at a clueless, amiable Jimmy with a narrowed stare.

There was an awkward pause when he and Jimmy dropped their hands. Eleanor shifted restlessly in her heels, made prickly by Trey’s stare on her.

“Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt your date,” Trey finally said gruffly. “You two are going to Gold Coast?”

“Oh, it’s not a date—”

“Trey? There you are. I thought I heard your voice.”

Eleanor blinked in surprise, her denial cut off by another woman’s crisp, British-accented voice. She looked between Trey’s and Jimmy’s tall bodies and saw a beautiful blond woman standing in the doorway of Gold Coast. The contrast of her patrician, cool features and the smoking-hot leather pants she wore created quite an impression. Eleanor’s heart shrunk two sizes when she saw the eager way she was staring at Trey. Her gaze bounced up to see Trey’s reaction to the unexpected British bombshell. She searched, but couldn’t find any clue on his handsome face. If she’d had to guess, she’d have said he’d forced a carefully blank expression.

“Alessandra,” he said.

This can’t be happening. He’d come back to town early for a date. Here, at Gold Coast. Or maybe he just lied to me about being away with family for the entire weekend. I should have known that his presentation of himself as a family-oriented farm boy was ridiculous.

The blond woman pointed into Gold Coast. “I just got us a table.”

“Right,” Trey said. Alessandra stepped toward them, looking politely confused when Trey didn’t immediately move to follow her. Or possibly, politely put out, Eleanor decided.

“Are these your friends?” Alessandra asked, glancing between Jimmy and Eleanor.

Trey made introductions, and they all shook hands as though everything were perfectly normal. Which maybe it was for everyone else. On Eleanor’s part, her heart had bulged from its previous shrunken state upon seeing the gorgeous Alessandra and was now swollen so large it was pressing uncomfortably against her sternum.

“It’s very crowded in there,” Alessandra told Trey, gesturing toward Gold Coast. “Maybe we could just go up to your place—”

“You said you had a table,” Trey cut her off.

Alessandra blinked. “But it’s the only one in the entire place. Maybe your friends would like it?”

“We can all sit together,” Trey replied, his tone terse and not inviting argument.

“Of course,” Alessandra replied, backing up in her heels toward Gold Coast. Eleanor started from her frozen state when Trey touched her back, urging her toward the restaurant. She gave him a startled look. He just peered down at her, his expression inscrutable, his eyes sharp. The only thing Eleanor felt in that moment was his customary focus, and it was drilling straight down into her.

That was how she found herself sitting at a cozy, candlelit table in the bar, for all intents and purposes on a double date with Trey Riordan.

Something this ridiculous could only happen to me.

There was a single saving grace. At least she’d never spied on him making love to Alessandra. If she had, she didn’t think she’d be able to sit there without getting physically sick.