Page 4 of Prelude To You

‘Thanks for scaring the living shit out of me,” I said defensively, not proud of the fact that all I had to keep me company was an empty bottle of champagne. I picked the bottle up from the floor and turned it over. “It’s empty, see? No harm done.”

A drop fell out on the floor. “Oops,” I said, and slipped the bottle back in my bag and out of sight. It was then that Ant Man caught sight of the book cover and nearly had a conniption. “Oh my God, is that… No, it isn’t… Yes, it is!”

He reached out to snatch the book, but I held it tightly to me. “What is your goddamn problem!?” I hissed, and glanced at his name badge. “Rick?”

“You took that book from behind a locked door!” he screamed.

“It wasn’t locked,” I said.

Rick was now scaling the edge of hysteria. “It should have been! Give that back!”

“Who’s responsible for making sure that door is locked, Rick?” I countered. “Would that be you?”

“You, Miss, are in a lot of trouble! I’m calling security!”

I couldn’t believe this. Rick was working the one tiny bit of authority he had in his life to the max, and I was the unfortunatetargetdu jour. “Oh really,” I snarled. “Look how scared you have me now.”

“Well, do you have any intention of buying that book?” he asked.

“Maybe I do,” I spat back. “I haven’t decided yet.”

He took in my appearance and scoffed. “Judging from that coat, I’m going to assume you can’t afford this book.”

What was it with people and this goddamn coat?It was a device that kept me warm and dry.

I tried counting to ten, but only got to three. “Says the guy with the cheap suit and the polyester tie,” I said in a low, threatening voice. I was totally committed to pushing all of Rick’s buttons now.

“Hand me the book, you stupid girl!”

“You give me that tone, Rick, and expect me to crawl out of here? You have another thing coming.”

Rick all but leaped to the wall phone, keeping an eye on me the whole time. “I need security over here, right NOW!” he squealed into the phone. And then the jackass tried to yank the book from my hands. My grip was tight but it slipped and Rick managed to grab the book from me with a mean grunt.

Not that he was done with the small-man superiority thing. “I want security to check that ugly bag of yours because who knows what else you’ve taken!”

I had just about had it with jerks tonight. I nosed up to Rick, all out of fucks to give. “Listen, you sad little loser. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?” I said this with no idea why I said it, or what I might say next, but it felt like the right thing to say at that moment. “Do you?No, you don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t stand there messing with me and making an even bigger fool of yourself.”

Rick clutched my precious book to his chest as two security guys appeared, and suddenly I was trapped.

“Did you find what you were looking for, my sweet?”

For the second time that night, I jumped. I spun around—and froze. All sound bled away. Even the classical music faded into a fog of white noise as I stared at the man in front of me. Better yet, as we stared at one another.

2

ISABEL

He was tall, very tall, and at a wild guess he was early thirties. Attractive would be one way to describe him. Another way would be devastatingly handsome. I knew those were shallow observations, but he was also slightly intimidating and really elegant, which pretty much completed the picture. He had a noble air about him, like he was born to bluebloods.

And there was that delectable mouth, and eyes the color of a storm-tossed sea—deep blue, with flecks of even darker blue. It all worked together so well in oh so many ways. He oozed class from the top of his beautiful head of black hair to the tips of his sophisticated and presumably designer shoes.

His scorched my skin. I felt little fires erupting everywhere, and a whisper of the most mystifying sensation whirled through me. My lips may have parted slightly, if only to help me catch my breath.

The effect this strange man had on me was hypnotic. I tried for a casual pose but failed spectacularly. Though I could say the same for him. He seemed as taken by me as I was by him.

He studied me with burning curiosity, and it suddenly got very hot under my coat. I instinctively shimmied out of it and draped it over my bag.

The stranger’s fierce gaze traveled over mesanscoat, and it could have been my imagination, but his breath might have hitched. He tried to cover up his reaction by pursing his beautiful lips. And while I was still trying to figure out what exactly was happening to me, he seemed to successfully recover from this breathtaking ten-second ordeal.

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