Page 4 of Like a Hurricane

He looks like he’s stepped right out of a novel and is living up to every book boyfriend fantasy I had ever had.

Because let’s be honest, the only good man is a fictional one.

Call me bitter, I don’t care.

I’d dated enough men to know they all had their own red flags, each one much worse than the last.

And despite this pretty face and no doubt killer body beneath his expensive suit, the man at the bar may as well have had a neon sign flashing above his head that read stay clear, I’m either a misogynistic ass or I’m a playboy and I’ll break your heart.

Neither of which I was in the mood for.

I had a photoshoot in the morning for a perfume ad, followed by another shoot in the afternoon and I needed to get some sleep now that I had been fed.

When the server returns, I pay for the food and drinks and gather up my belongings, tucking my jacket over the dusty pink dress I’d selected for the evening, tying the belt around the waist to keep it tight and step out from the table.

I give polite smiles to everyone who greets me on the way out but as soon as I’m out the doors, I suck in a clean, fresh breath of icy winter air. Snow was falling – what a shocker – adding to the growing blanket already settling on the city.

I keep away from it to save the white Louboutin’s on my feet and call my driver from my phone.

I shiver against the chill while I wait.

The door behind me opens and I feel the presence of a body step up to mine. A subtle glance to the left shows the man from the bar has stepped up next to me.

“There’s a whole sidewalk for you to wait on,” I note.

“Hadn’t noticed,” His deep timbre of a voice chases away the chill in my spine.

He smells so fucking good, it was unfair, like aged whiskey, spice and musk. It made me want to bury my nose into his neck and inhale.

“Do you mind?” I swallow.

“Not at all, Miss Lauder,” He glances down at me, “Are you cold?”

“No.” I lie.

He chuckles and shrugs out of his jacket, laying it in a way so only the fabric touches my body and not his hands, “Your ride is coming around the corner. Get home safe, Miss Lauder. Keep the jacket.”

And then he walks away, disappearing around the corner of the restaurant in just a shirt that stretches generously over the broad expanse of his shoulders as my driver stops on the snow-covered road ahead of me.

And even though the car was warmed and the seats generating heat, I tuck the jacket closer, holding the lapels together with my hand and do what I wanted to do on the sidewalk. I inhale that intoxicating scent.

Chapter Two

Six out of the seven days I was working. If it wasn’t a shoot, it was an ad, if it wasn’t an ad, I was down at the factory approving new lines of lingerie to add to the stock for the online shop. And if it wasn’t that, I was at the Lauder Hotel in the middle of Portland, helping my dad, even though he had thousands of members of staff on hand.

I was busy.

And tired.

The sound of my heels on the tiles is as therapeutic as one might find the rain on a tin roof. There was just something about the steady, strong tap of my shoes on the floor. I loved the sound and mostly chose to wear heels.

The love for heels started when I needed those extra inches in height, as a model I was already shorter than average, and at the beginning of my career, I didn’t want a single part of my body, especially a part I had no control over, to affect my chances of success.

And the first year of wearing these things on my feet, I loathed it, until one day, I didn’t. Granted they aren’t the most practical pair of shoes, but it isn’t like I’m about to go hiking in them.

My PA chats animatedly at my side, her fingernails tapping on the screen of her cell as she answers my emails. Without Suzy I was damn sure I would have burned out and cried in the corner somewhere a long time ago.

She was a life saver.

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