Well, two could play at the Peeping Tom game.
Noemi let her gaze linger over the stranger’s bent head of tousled dark hair. It was weeks past needing a cut and shaggy, hanging lower over his forehead, likely even when his head wasn’t bent, but maybe he preferred it that way. He, like the rest of the male population in town, seemed to prefer plaid. He had the usual red and black variety on, adorning the broadest set of shoulders she’d ever seen. Just above the table, the arch of that broad chest narrowed to a trim waist, but that was all she could see.
His hands. His hands were on the tabletop, so she took a second to study those too. Broad, bronzed hands with blunt square nails. Both hands were twined around the cup, like it was just there for moral support and he didn’t actually want to drink the six-dollar swill the shop served up. He reminded her of the lumberjacks on posters of old. Broad. Dark. Dangerous. Before he’d ducked his head, she got a glimpse of a square, hard set jaw, a wide brow and high cheekbones that he probably got made fun of for all the time. That strong jaw had a dusting of dark stubble that only added to the allure. And his eyes? The eyes that burned a hole right through her? They were the lightest blue she’d ever seen, impossible to describe, as they weren’t ice and they weren’t sky.
They were totally otherworldly.
Unfortunately, he was probably singlehandedly the most beautiful male specimen she’d ever had the pleasure of looking at, and that was saying a lot, considering she lived in New York and there was no shortage of men to gawk at.
Her eyes scanned the man’s hands again, searching for a wedding ring but there wasn’t one, though that really didn’t mean anything. For a split, crazy second, she debated about getting up and sitting down across from the guy and proposing marriage, just so her fiancé couldn’t marry her and get his way. Just to spit her father.
Okay, time to go.
She nearly laughed at herself for being so ridiculous. She was obviously jetlagged and overtired, her emotions near breaking point because thoughts like that were way the hell inappropriate. It was thoughts like that, her father’s thoughts- that got her into her whole current mess in the first place.
Noemi gathered up her phone, slipping it into the back pocket of her ripped jeans, scooped up her purse and grabbed her latte, even though she didn’t really want to drink it. She made a beeline straight for the door, just to escape the suddenly overwarm, closed-in feeling inside the little shop. She had no idea how she was going to kill the rest of the day but maybe sitting in front of her laptop trying to figure out how to re-start her life would be the best course of action.
She didn’t look at the stranger as she passed by him. She didn’t need to. His image was imprinted into her brain. He was gorgeous, in that rugged, wild animal, brutal sort of way. It was always the gorgeous ones that a person had to watch out for. They were the most dangerous.
They were the kind of men who were used to just existing and having women fall into a gooey pile all over their boots to worship them. Okay, well- maybe they wouldn’t be worshipping the boots. Probably other choice anatomy which she was never going to let herself think about.
Noemi had never been so thankful to see her rental in her life. She slipped in and hesitated for just a second before she slipped the key in the ignition.
Her chest burned strangely, and her stomach felt like she’d just swallowed an angry hive of buzzing bees and she was no bear, so that shit was hard to digest. What the heck is wrong with me? Oh right. I haven’t slept properly in days. I just fled across the country. My life is a complete shit storm with full-on torrential shit rain, shit thunder, and shit lightning.
Instead of sitting in her car and giving in to the pity party of the century, she slipped out into traffic, determined to shut herself into her hotel room and not emerge until she’d figured out at least the most pressing of her problem. Home. Job.
She had to hold out hope that the rest of her life, or what was left of the tattered remains of it, would fall into place after that.
CHAPTER 3
Byron
Sometimes having a fairly pretty face helped.
Not Noemi. He wasn’t talking about her. He was talking about himself and how he’d shamelessly charmed the female barista at the coffee shop the day before into giving him some information about the woman in the picture he slid across the counter.