Page 39 of The Charmer

Or maybe she was making lousy excuses for wanting to get naked with the hottest guy she’d ever known?

“I can prove it to you,” he said, tilting her chin up to gaze into her eyes, his blue eyes boring into her with an intensity she couldn’t fathom.

“Prove what?” She’d lost track of the conversation the second her mind put the two of them together naked.

“Prove I’m not the enemy.”

“And how are you going to do that? By schmoozing me?”

“Don’t tempt me.” His gaze focussed on her lips and her breath hitched.

Her lips parted as his head descended, blocking out the brilliant sunshine streaming down on them and she held her breath, her hands splayed on his chest, craving the feel of bare skin rather than expensive cotton.

Her eyelids fluttered shut and she tilted her head a fraction, craving the touch of his lips more than she’d craved anything in her entire life.

“I’ll call you,” he said against the corner of her mouth, his lips brushing hers in the briefest of almost-there kisses before pulling away.

What the?

Her eyes snapped open and she reeled from the disappointment of not locking lips with the most infuriating guy she’d ever met.

He stepped away and she steadied, knowing if she swayed towards him he’d know how truly pathetic she was. One minute she was telling him to get lost, the next she was offering herself to him. Sheesh. The sooner she dated again, the better.

It had been way too long since she’d been held by a guy let alone had sex. Her excuse for her irrational behaviour and she was sticking to it.

“Whatever,” she said, brushing an errant curl out of her face, turning the gesture into a casual wave as he smiled before walking away.

However, there was nothing remotely casual about the blood pounding through her body or how much she wanted the guy who had the potential to ruin her.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Why the glum face, bella?”

Ariel summoned a smile for Sofia, knowing it fell short of her usual grin when the woman’s dark eyes filled with concern.

“My muse is being stubborn,” Ariel said, fiddling with the dimmer switch on the gallery lights, wanting to get the ambience just right before opening the doors to the public in ten minutes for Chelsea’s show.

Sofia tapped her upper lip with a manicured, crimson fingernail. “Are you sure it’s just your muse being stubborn?”

“What do you mean?” Ariel stepped back and studied the vibrant oil landscape in front of her, pleased with the vivid colours dancing beneath a soft spotlight.

“Maybe that delicious man has you in a spin and you’re holding out on him? Santo cielo, what a dish that one is.” Sofia kissed her fingertips and waved them heavenward—holy sky indeed.

Ariel smiled, her first genuine smile since her confrontation with Cooper yesterday. “That kind of dish gives me indigestion so I’d rather not talk about him.”

She should’ve known not to deny anything too vehemently with Sofia. It only served to inflame her curiosity.

“Ahh…a lover’s quarrel, perhaps?” Sofia’s eyes sparkled with intrigue. “All great love affairs need drama and I think you have this with your young man, no?”

“No. And he’s not my young man.”

Ariel moved onto her next task, making sure the cheese platters were arranged just right and interspersed with the exotic dips and crackers, wishing a small, traitorous part of her soul didn’t wish he was.

“Life does not have to be so tough all the time. What will be will be.” Concern laced Sofia’s words but Ariel mentally disagreed.

Life was tough. Hers always had been and she didn’t know any better. Losing the gallery would be yet another example of it. A sad, heart-breaking example, as she lost the one thing that symbolised hope to her: hope for a better life, hope that good things could come out of bad, hope that she could be the type of person Barb would’ve wanted her to be. The type of person she wanted to be: successful, proud and independent. Qualities guys like Cooper took for granted.

Well, she’d show him.

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