Page 41 of Bargain with the Bachelor
I sat at the long dining table with all the guys. While most of them were in a lively mood, chatting and laughing, Hunter was in his own world, brooding and silent throughout lunch, looking down at his phone more than he looked up at the friends surrounding him.
Maybe, like Reid, he was weary of the ever-present camera crew. But even later on, after they’d left for the day, he stayed quiet, keeping to himself as he worked on his laptop in the corner of his favorite couch.
Maybe it was the lingering aftermath of Shower-pocalypse?
We’d discussed it, laughed uncomfortably at the mishap, and vowed to move past it days ago.
God knows I’d tried to. Unsuccessfully.
The sight of him naked had been engraved into my mind’s permanent record like carvings on a marble monument.
And what a monument it was.
I’d never thought of Harry as lacking in that department. But after seeing Hunter’s full package... well it was hard for mere mortals to compete.
If the incident had affected him the same way, Hunter was hiding it well. More likely his aloofness and absence was due to the stress of work. It was all these guys seemed to think about.
Hunter, being the founder of the company, took a larger load on himself than any of them. He’d been working insane hours the past week.
That worried me.
My father had been obsessed with work, staying at the office late into the night most weekdays and rarely even taking an entire weekend off.
There was no doubt in my mind his driven, workaholic nature had contributed to his stroke and early death.
Getting up from my own chair in the great room, I walked over to where Hunter was working. I lay a hand on his shoulder, and his body tensed instantly.
“Take a walk with me,” I said softly.
He barely looked up. “Can’t. Too much to do.”
Having expected him to say exactly that, I was undeterred. I wrapped both my hands around his forearm and tugged playfully.
“You’ve been working non-stop all day. Have you evenlookedoutside? Online commerce will survive without you for an hour. Come on.”
I leaned back and pulled, succeeding in shifting Hunter’s large body mere inches.
Finally, he looked up at me, his sea-blue eyes colder than I’d ever seen them before.
Whoa.He reallywasstressed.
“Someone else can walk with you,” Hunter grunted.
“I’ll go,” Paul said, followed by a loud sneeze.
“You probably shouldn’t go out in this cold,” I told him then turned my focus back to Hunter. My mind scrolled for a suitable lure.
“Besides, Hunter mentioned a secret beach he knows of that I want to check out for my next series of photographs,” I said. “Toni at the Sandcastle Gallery wants some new ones, and she specifically asked for nautical shots.”
I gave Hunter a doe-eyed smile andmighthave added an extra note of persuasion to my voice. “Come on—it’s nearly the golden hour, and Ireallyneed some new shots.”
Heaving a defeated sigh, he closed his laptop and set it to the side. “Fine. I’ll show you where the beach is, then I’ve got to get back. Grab your coat.”
Victory.
Unfortunately, it was a short-lived one. The drive in his car was painfully silent. Workaholic that he was, Hunter must have still been thinking about all the things he needed to do.
Well, I’dforcehim to lighten up and have fun, if that was what it came to.
