Page 112 of When Hearts Remember

I bite my lip when suddenly he stops his movements.

“What are you staring at?” His voice is deeper. Hoarse.

Is he remembering that night too?

My gaze flickers back to his, finding his eyes pinned on my mouth, and the room becomes ten degrees warmer. My tongue dips out to wet my lips, and he strains a breath.

“N-Nothing.” I clear my throat. “Before we start, I want to apologize.”

Ethan frowns.

“Back when I was in the hospital, I implied you were successful because of your last name. I was wrong.”

A ragged exhale escapes him. “Where’s this coming from? Did you remember…something?”

I shake my head. “Lana told me you worked your way up from the bottom. I shouldn’t have assumed. I’m sorry.”

Ethan rolls his lips inward, his shoulders slumping. He looks crestfallen. “Right, of course. Don’t worry about it. I already forgot what you said.”

Silence falls, but my pulse ratchets and my muscles tighten, like I want to jump into action. To do what?

“Um. You were going to tutor me?”

“Come closer.” He motions to the paper in front of him.

“I can see just fine from over here.” In fact, I scoot farther away.

I don’t want to know how the proximity will impact me if my body is going haywire over him staring at me and flexing his forearms.

Something suspiciously sounding like a snort tumbles out of him. Without warning, he reaches over and yanks my chair, hauling me within breathing distance of his towering frame.

Like I weigh nothing.

I shriek and cover my mouth, my pulse thundering in my ears when my nose is assaulted with the heady scent of leather and amber again.

Butterflies flutter in my stomach.

My core throbs and my nipples bead.

Traitorous body.

“You can’t see from over there.” He uncaps his pen and writes out an equation. “Break even point equals fixed costs divided by an amount equal to room rate minus variable cost per guest. This is oversimplifying it, but you can use this formula to calculate the number of guests you’ll need to break even for a project. Then, using an average occupancy rate per month, you can project the time it’ll take to break even.”

His voice is velvet, like he’s murmuring sweet nothings into my ear. Goosebumps rise on my arms, and I fight the urge to rub against him like a cat.

Focus, Lexy. Focus.

I think I’m seeing a rare side of him—a side he hides from his family.

“Sounds confusing, huh?” He chuckles. “It’s not that hard when you—”

“Hold on.” Something tugs at me, a whisper in the back of my mind. I pick up a pen and diagram on the paper. “Wait—this makes sense. I think. If I were building a house, I’d have fixed costs like labor or land, but as I lay bricks, those are variable costs. So, the question is, how many bricks I need for the house to stand on its own? Will that work?”

I don’t know what I’m saying, but I actually understand it, like my brain has figured it out before my conscious mind registers it.

“Huh.” I smile at the house I drew. “It’s like a story. If I imagine the formula as a story, it makes so much sense. How did I come up with that?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, his fingers tighten around the cuff links on the table, his mouth parting, nostrils flaring.

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