Page 50 of Housebroke

“I’m really looking forward to sightseeing tomorrow.”

He reached out and laid his hand over hers. “I’m sorry I can’t go with you.”

“Please don’t feel bad. It’s totally okay. You have work to do, which is why you’re here, and I’m used to being on my own.”

“Okay. But don’t be surprised if I text you throughout the day to make sure you’re doing all right.”

She would not tell him how special that made her feel. “That’ll be fine.”

“And if you run into any problems, you call me right away.”

“I will absolutely not do that. Again, you’ll be working.”

He gave her a stern look, which admittedly was kind of a turn-on.

“Hazel, you have to promise.”

“Fine. I promise, but I won’t run into any problems at all.”

Their server came by with their drinks. Hazel took a sip, delighted by the sweet, bubbly flavor. “This is so good.”

Linc took a swallow of his beer. “You like fruity drinks?”

She laughed. “I like all kinds of drinks. Beer, wine, cocktails, shots.”

He arched a brow. “Shots, huh?”

“Of course. There’s nothing like a smooth tequila on its own.”

“I agree with that. We’ll have to do shots sometime.”

Hazel could already imagine how much fun that could be. “I’ll make a note to put tequila on the shopping list.”

“You do that.”

She wondered if he was even aware that while they were talking he was drawing circles and other shapes on her hand with his fingertip. He might not notice, but every part of her definitely did. What was it about his touch that got to her?

“Your city is beautiful,” she said, trying to disengage her sensory reactions to his skating fingertip. “How could you possibly want to leave it?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, it’s really nice here. But so are other places in the U.S. and I wanted to see them.”

She took a sip of her cocktail, studying him. “What made you decide to go into renovating houses?”

“I hate to be cliché, but I’m gonna do it anyway and say I’ve always liked doing things with my hands. Working in investments has been fun. It engages my brain in all the right ways.”

“But not exactly a physical workout.”

“No. When I got the business up and running and put the right people in place, I knew I could take off for long periods of time, popping in when needed. Which meant I could take six to eight weeks to renovate a house, then head back here, take a week or two to catch up before I start the process over again.”

He was so confident about who he was and where he wanted to be. She wished she’d had that level of self-assuredness about any aspect of her life, instead of floundering for so long about... everything.

Their server came and took their food orders. After, Hazel took several sips of her outstanding cocktail while pondering her life choices versus how Linc seemed to have it totally together.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“I am? I was. I’m sorry. I was just thinking about your confidence level, how you seem to know exactly what you were meant to do.”

He swirled his fingers around his glass. “You’d like to think that, but it wasn’t always the case. I started out working in finance. I was good at it, but God, I was bored. I knew right away I didn’t want to work for someone else. I had all these ideas about what I wanted to do, investments I wanted to make in real estate.”

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