Page 19 of Naughty Irish Liar

If not for summer school I would have been at the beach house with nana and pops and I would have missed meeting Ronan.

I swear that first look of him I nearly died when he flashed me a grin across the yard. He always wore jeans and a jacket of some sort. Like he didn’t realise it was the height of summer. But he didn’t sweat. He was too cool for that.

And I loved him.Gah.

“Hey, princess. Where’s your dad at?” A voice behind me caused my lungs to stop working as I whirled around to see him standing there in the foyer.

Gorgeous, dirty blonde hair, blue eyed and my prince charming.

Having red hair meant I blushed. I didn’t mean to but there you have it. I wore enough sun block to choke a donkey and still I burned to a crisp if I wasn’t careful. I smiled and bounced over. “Hey! I don’t know. He has breakfast with mom in the sun room this time of day. Where are you working today?”

“We’re headed to Manhattan.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask to go along but I knew the answer already.Get your homework done, Catie-cat.Daddy just wanted me to have the best education but what he didn’t realize was, I wasn’t all that bright. Nothing came to me naturally and though I made alright grades, I worked my butt off for them.

It was exhausting to my brain.

I leaned my arm on a newel post. Watching every detail as he slid both hands down into his front pockets, rocked back on his leather boots and looked out through the open door to the garden.

“Why are you only working with daddy for the summer, Ronan?”

He turned and gave me his full attention. Meaning those crystal blue eyes didn’t look anywhere else other than my face and like clockwork my cheekbones flamed, and my belly did its funny twisty thing again.

That sensation at the back of my neck, the one that made me wholly aware a fully-grown man was gazing at me didn’t let up.

“That’s what was agreed.”

Vague. I was still none the wiser what he did for daddy but before I could ask him he said. “Looks like you’re not working today?” Eyes scanned down to my flip flops.

He thought I had a job?

It wasn’t the first time that summer he’d said something similar and I’d brushed it off by telling himnot today. I didn’t want him to know I was a school kid. Not when I was going for sophistication.

It wasn’t a lie.

But an omit of the truth.

Daddy’s lawyer best friend would say it stood up in a court of law.

“I’m being a summer bum,” I grinned and died on the spot when he grinned back at me. Then I rushed on before I could chicken out. “I could, maybe make you something to eat if you get back in time today. If you want to. I mean it’s fine if you already grabbed food in the city.”

Dear god. I wasn’t this nervous when the quarterback asked me out and I told him hell no. On account of him being a total douche-canoe who only wanted a girl for what was between her legs. He had a reputation worse than Charlie Sheen.

If Ronan sensed my nerves he kindly didn’t call me on it as I clung to the newel post for dear life. He did grin from half of his mouth and then shuffle fingers through his naturally messy bed hair.

“Ah,” pronouncedeyeand I loved when he said it in his deep Irish accent. I could listen to him all day, “That sounds good. What you gonna make for me?”

On the spot I reeled off things I’d never made before that I thought a man like him would like and I just had to hope Rissa our housekeeper would be around to help dig me out of my self-made grave, but it was so worth it when I earned another grin. “Do you trust me to feed you?”

“You shouldn’t trust anyone.”

I laughed a little at his serious face. “Does that include you?”

The look in his eyes became part wolf, an animalistic predator and me the slab of meat.

His breath brushed my earlobe. A wash of heat and lust. I had to control the shudder threatening to rattle my bones.

“Especially me,princess.”

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