Swept into the Tycoon's World by Cara Colter

Author:Cara Colter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-05-01T11:03:14+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

SHOOT, BRAND THOUGHT. There it was, out of his mouth. The whole time he’d been in Bali he’d wondered that. Bikini or one-piece? Bali had not been quite the escape that he had hoped for. Now, here he was in the kitchen with Bree, being as wicked as baking cookies allowed, and somehow the question had just popped out of his mouth.

Bree’s mouth fell open. She looked flustered.

Well, who could blame her? He was tired. He should have never agreed to the cookie-making session.

He knew what it was really about. She had seen something in him, sensed something in this house. A longing. A vulnerability. He was going to distract her from her quest.

Which was what? To know the real him?

That, yes, but more. She was determined to show him something he had missed.

Her motivations, he was one-hundred-percent positive, were nothing but altruistic. He should have never let it slip about living in the car, about his childhood being less than ideal, because she was busy filling in the gaps now. The problem was, once you had been shown something like that, didn’t you then ache for it forever?

He did not want to be thinking of the word forever anywhere in the vicinity of her.

“Why don’t you guess?” she suggested, her cheeks pink.

His distractions, he was pleased to see, were working. He had entirely removed the focus from himself.

“I’m going to guess a one-piece—”

“That’s correct.”

“When it should be a bikini.”

“Four eggs,” she said, a little too loudly. She held up a device in her hand. “This is a handheld electric mixer. Think of it as HAL’s little sister. We’re going to whip the butter.”

“Look, if you don’t want any wickedness you can’t talk about whips.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I hope you aren’t that kind of guy, Brand Wallace.” Sternly, she handed him the electric beaters. “Put them in the butter and sugar and turn them on. That should drown out the sound of your voice.”

“I’m offended,” he said, though he was not. In the least.

“Aside from butter, this is the secret to making really, really good cookies.”

“Good whipping?” he said innocently.

She pinched her lips together. It didn’t help one little bit. The laughter gurgled out past her closed lips.

He’d totally succeeded in distracting her from the topic of himself.

And he had totally failed to protect himself.

Because her laughter was a balm to a life that suddenly came face-to-face with the emptiness of all his accomplishments and all his stuff. He had somehow missed the most important thing of all.

Connection.

She laughed until she doubled over, until tears ran down her face.

It made him realize he knew secrets about her, too, that she probably did not want him to know.

Despite her laughter right now, there was some sadness in her that would not let her go, that had not been in her when he had escorted her to her prom. She had been shy, yes, and awkward, yes, but almost filled to the brim with an innocent confidence life would be good to her.

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