Page 20 of Riches and Romance

“You do? Like what?”

“What do you miss most about your life in America?”

I’m so surprised by the question that I forget whatever I’m about to say and pause to think about that. When I left, I couldn’t wait for the change in scenery and haven’t really looked back. “I miss the sun. Being close to the ocean. My family. Even though they get on my fucking nerves, think money grows on trees, and only call me when they need something.”

She leans back in her seat, her eyes lose their humor, and she bites her lower lip. “Do you have a big family?”

“My older sister Layel, her daughter Hannah, and her son Ethan. My dad has five siblings, so I have a slew of aunts and uncles and cousins. It’s someone’s birthday every damn week.”

“And your parents are from Tonga?”

I smile, impressed and flattered that she knows that. It’s one of the least mentioned aspects of my background. “Yeah, my dad is a native, but my mother’s parents were Australian transplants whose roots wind themselves all the way back to this very city.”

“Wow, it’s so cool that you can trace your roots so precisely.”

“What about you?”

She squints at me with a teasing smile on her lips. “If you had to guess where I’m from, what would you say?”

I frown and scrunch my nose as if I’ve never pondered that question before. “Well…” I draw out the word and give her an exaggerated head-to-toe assessment. “I’d say I had a friend from Ethiopia in high school, and you could be her sister. And when you wear your hair straight like this tonight, you look like a young Iman.”

She laughs. “A young Iman who’s too short and thick for sample sizes, but I’ll accept that. My dad was from Ghana. My mom was American, according to him. But I don’t know anything else about her.”

“They split up?”

“No, she died giving birth to me.” She swallows audibly. She’s lost both of her parents. And here I am ignoring my father.

A crack of thunder rattles the glass-paned windows of the car, and she breaks eye contact. “God, it’s about to pour. And I’ve got an early morning. Thank you for bringing me home.”

She leans down and grabs her green and red Puma trainers off the floorboard. She rests her heel on the seat. Her toenails are painted bright red and as pretty as everything else about her.

She looks up, and I can’t look away fast enough this time. Or maybe it’s that I don’t have to now that we’re completely alone, and I know she has a thing for me, too.

Her amber eyes trap me as if they were sap and I the proverbial dragonfly, and I couldn’t look away to save my life. “You’re so beautiful.” Even with that packing on her nose, she’s riveting.

“When you look at me that way, I believe you mean it.”

“I mean everything I say.”

“We’ll see.” She tips her head ever so slightly to the right, a lock of hair falls over her forehead, and I reach over to tuck it behind her ear.

She exhales a long breath when my fingers skim the petal-soft shell of her ear.

“I’m a sucker for a chance to prove myself right.”

Her heavy-lidded gaze drops to my mouth. And mine moves to hers just as her voluptuous, gloss-slick lips part and the tip of her tongue wets her lower lip before she bites it.

The pull of attraction turns into a tug of want that has a life of its own. I skim my fingers down her silk-smooth throat and cup her neck.

I lean in and brush a kiss across her lips. It’s light as a feather, but it dances across every nerve ending of my body like the shocks I used to get when I dragged my feet over the carpet and then touched the door handle.

She leans away, her eyes wide with surprise that appears as acute as mine.

Her fingers skim her lips, and she closes her eyes as if she’s in pain.

“Are you okay?”

She shakes her head, and my throat closes.

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