Page 37 of So Close

“No. It’s a tourist trap. No, worse: It’s the tourist trap that all tourist traps were made in the image of.” He actually found himself stepping back, a dramatic retreat, and realized: He was doing it to try to make her laugh. Damn it. He had to quit that.

After his conversation with Deja yesterday afternoon at tea, he’d nearly bailed out of the whole deal. Before hedidsomething he’d regret. For example, kiss her.

Although he knew that wouldn’t be the worst thing he could do. The worst thing would be tolikeher. Generally speaking, Trey went out of his way not to have feelings—even mild ones—for people he did business with—particularly if those people’s interests were not aligned with his.

If he liked Auburn Campbell, it would be that much harder to do what he knew he had to do.

Deja had seen him looking at Auburn and had recognized what he’d been trying to deny since that first night in Bob’s Tavern, that despite the mess on the table between him and Auburn, he couldn’t look away. Because she was pretty, yes, sexy, hell yes, spunky, feisty, spirited, yes, yes, and God, yes. But the thing he liked most about her was how she saw the upside of everything. Goodness in everyone. Beauty in the things that were shabby, broken, or ugly. Fun in little bits of nothing. Which made no sense, because he had no patience with that kind of sentimentality. None.

And in this case, he could absolutely not afford it.

“You don’t need designer clothes to bike on the beach,” she said, and before he could argue, she swung the door open and marched in.

Mouth open, he followed her.

She led him toward the back of the shop, where she began pulling things off racks and piling them into his arms. “Go. Try those on.”

“Are you always this bossy?”

She made a face at him. “Only when a rich, out-of-town asshole shows up and threatens to tear down my inn.”

He squelched a smile. “Not your inn.Myinn.”

She scowled and gave him a little shove toward the dressing room. “Shut up and get naked.”

His eyes found hers, but her expression gave nothing away, which made it ten thousand times more annoying that his body had reacted so instantly, a hum of blood southward. Or was it their back-and-forth a moment earlier that had done it? The stakes were way too high for any of this to be a game, and yet, she made him feel like it was.

Another thing he didn’t want to like about her.

Inside the fitting room, he examined what she’d picked out for him. A long-sleeved SPF surf shirt that said Tierney Bay and a cheap pair of Hawaiian print board shorts. Canvas-strap flip flops. Jesus. Talk about ruining someone’s life. But he obediently put them on and checked himself out in the mirror. He didn’t look anything like himself. His hair was even standing on end from the clothing change. He looked—

Well, he looked like a beach rat. A surfer dude, minus the bleached long hair. And the tan. But even that—he’d somehow picked up some color the last couple of days, maybe when he’d taken his laptop out on the porch yesterday afternoon.

He tried to think whether there was anyone else on earth that he’d ever allowed to dictate his wardrobe choices. Dress him.

No. Definitely not. He’d even quit letting his mother shop for him before he was twelve.

And yet he’d given Auburn the privilege, and he didn’t even resent it all that much.

He stepped out. She was standing there, leaning against a column. She was wearing a floaty white shirt that was mostly sheer. He could see through it to her bright red lace bra and her creamy curves. He could see the outline of her navel in the sweet curve of her belly. His eyes traced that soft slope down under the waistband of her skirt.

His hands wanted to follow the path his eyes had taken, dip into her—probably red lace—panties, and wrestle control from her. Preferably by making her lose it completely.

“Well, look at you,” she said. “You look almost like you know how to relax and cut loose.”

Her gaze traveled unabashedly over his bare feet, up his bare calves—leaving a wake of heat—and up. It traversed his abdomen and fanned out over the span of his shoulders. He could feel the approving perusal like a touch. And his body, Judas that it was, leapt accordingly.

Her attention snagged on the action in the unforgiving board shorts and came up to meet his eyes, sharp and interested. The heat and tension built between them until he could feel the blood moving everywhere. High in his cheeks, fast in his chest, hard and hot where it counted.

She wants what I want.

“Auburn—”

“Finding everything okay?” a voice asked from behind him.

“Yes—” he said, his attention flicking away from Auburn for just a split second, but it was long enough. When he looked back, her face was carefully blank again. Wiped of everything that had been there a moment before.

“Get changed,” she said, not looking at him. “And then we can fight over who’s going to pay for your new outfit.”

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