Southern Heartbreaker (Charleston Heat 4)

Ford Montgomery. In a suit.

At heart, I may be a pit master who normally has no interest in power suits like this one. But I’m also a red-blooded woman.

And damn does Ford look good.

Really, really good.

He’s gotten broader in the shoulders and chest. Trimmer around the waist. He’s not wearing a tie; the neck of his crisp white button-down is open, tanned skin and a smattering of hair peeking through the v.

He wears his hair combed back. Smooth and corporate and polite.

But then I’m taken off guard, because there’s nothing polite about the hot flash in his whiskey-warm eyes when they meet mine.

Eyes that, once upon a time, belonged to the tattooed bad boy I fell for at nineteen.

So which is he? The pretentious power suit, or the sensualist English major who could quote Emily Dickinson by heart and do all kinds of lewd, delicious things with his tongue?

“Terrible pun,” I manage. “Hey. Hello, Ford.”

One side of his mouth quirks upward.

Shit, that smirk. It’s downright wicked.

“Sorry,” he replies. “It’s the Michael Scott in me.”

“That’s what she said,” I reply, pulse skipping at the reference. How many times did we flirt and snuggle and fuck to a background of The Office reruns?

His smirk broadens into a smile. “God, I haven’t seen that show in forever. I haven’t seen any show in forever.” He shakes his head, eyes going soft as they move over my face. “Hello, Eva.”

The backs of my knees melt a little. Him saying my name is like getting hit by the tastiest, juiciest red wine buzz ever.

Stop.

The guy dumped me ten years ago because I wasn’t “ambitious enough”, for Christ’s sake. I should give him the finger and walk away.

But then I remember we’re at a baby shower. Not just any baby shower—Julia and Grey’s shower. Two people who just so happen to be my best friend and Ford’s only brother.

I have to be polite. And maybe some inane small talk will send him running. It always did back in college.

“How crazy is this?” I say, nodding at the shower decorations around us. “Your brother and my best friend falling in love and having a baby together. What are the chances?”

But instead of running, he laughs. This velvety, low chuckle, and takes his left hand out of his pocket to smooth back his hair.

He’s wearing a fancy pants watch—Patek Philippe, same one Bobby Flay wore when I glimpsed him at a cooking competition a few months back—but no ring.

I look away.

“I definitely didn’t see it coming. But like I told Grey after he broke the news that Julia was pregnant—the two of them being together actually makes a strange sort of sense. They’re the only people smart enough—ballsy enough—to go toe to toe with each other. I think he was smitten from the beginning. And now…” Ford turns his head to glance in their direction. “Hell, now he’s head over heels in love.”

There’s something about the way Ford’s voice softens that has me looking back up at him. He may be dressed like a slick investment banker, but he’s talking about love and family and attraction with sincerity.

With interest and awe.

I can’t risk looking him in the eye. So I look at the satisfyingly sharp angles of Ford’s jawline instead. The fullness of his lips.

That fucking dimple in his chin, the one I’d fill with the pad of my thumb when I’d pull him in for a kiss.

Blinking, I focus my gaze on the box. I busy myself opening it, feeling his attention on me the whole time.

I don’t say a word. Hoping he’ll take the hint and move on.

“The way they feel about each other—their story—it’s kind of epic, isn’t it?” he continues.

More sincerity. More softness.

I don’t know what I was expecting Ford to be like when I saw him today.

But I definitely wasn’t expecting him to be vulnerable. Real.

“Epic,” I say carefully. “I like that.”

“Also epic that it brought you and I together again after, what, ten years? Makes us—you and me—feel a little star-crossed.”

The almost-English major in him is coming out.

I allow myself a small smile.

“Don’t you dare go Shakespearean on me,” I say, looking up. “I have a cake to prep and a baby shower to host. No time to get weak in the knees.”

Ford’s eyes sweep to the knees in question. Sweep back up. My body, ever the traitor, arches into the pull of his gaze. Like he’s just reached for me and run one of those big hands up my side.

I blink. I’m being an idiot, talking to him like this.

But before I can excuse myself, Ford is reaching across my torso. With long, patient fingers, he starts disassembling the sides of the cake box.

“Here, let me help you. Never hurts to have an extra pair of hands.”Chapter ThreeEvaUgh, this guy.

Ford is dropping innuendos left and right that are somehow both pervy and cute.