Page 17 of Hot and Bothered
The heat between my legs flared, but I refused to let my libido take control like that. I didn’t want things to be awkward, and if I was caught drooling over him it might end up ruining everything.
“Are you going to order food?” I asked. “You don’t have to do that, I can fend for myself.”
“Are you saying that because you don’t want to impose on me or are you saying that because you don’t like burritos?” he asked.
“I’ve only had burritos a couple times in my life,” I confessed.
That wasn’t the kind of thing my parents served us for dinner. I didn’t say that out loud, though. Evan no doubt already suspected the hoity-toity life I had run away from. I didn’t need to tell him all the details. I knew how it sounded. Although that life was normal to me, I was aware of how unusual it was to everyone else who wasn’t in my parent’s social circle.
As soon as the words left my lips, that I’d rarely eaten burritos, Evan shook his head in feigned sadness.
“You poor deprived thing,” he said. “I know the best place for burritos. I’ll have them delivered. Just give me a second to go change out of my workout clothes and then I’ll place the order.”
He went to his bedroom, and I breathed a soft sigh of relief. I no longer had to fight the urge to scan up and down his body.
I’d never reacted to a guy like this before, with such improper and unseemly behavior.
But it hadn’t escaped my notice that, while I’d been struggling to keep my eyes focused on Evan’s face, his gaze had dropped to my lips and my legs once or twice. It was subtle, a quick flash of his eyes, but I’d noticed.
I had a sinking feeling things were going to get messy.
I picked up the charger and plugged in the phone, checking the battery percentage. It was now at fifteen percent. The battery in this old thing really did drain quickly.
The phone buzzed and chimed. My heart leapt to my throat. With a rising sense of dread, I turned the phone over in my hand.
It was the messaging app I’d used to contact my sister.
She had written back to me.
My hands shook as I hovered a thumb over the screen.
Did I want to hear what she had to say? Or was it better to ignore the message? What if something really important happened? What if my mother or father had fallen ill?
Maybe the shock of running away gave one of them a heart attack.
I tapped to open the app and begin to read what my sister had written.
My heart sank as I scrolled through paragraph after paragraph of condemnation and condescension.
My sister was just as upset with me as I had expected, and from what she had written, my parents were even more so. Tirades about the family business and my now-ruined reputation were only the beginning of her rant.
My chest felt tight. I could barely take in any air around the lump of pure lead sitting in my lungs. My breath came in fits and starts.
It became hard to continue reading because my hands were trembling so hard the screen ended up shaky and blurry. The beginnings of tears pinpricked behind my eyes.
A strong hand covered mine, ceasing the quakes.
“Are you all right?” Evan asked.
I shook my head. My lips parted but no words would come out. My breath hitched, just as it had when I been drinking and crying at the bar, as if I was seconds away from having the same breakdown.
“Is it your family?” Evan asked.
“They’re just as upset with me as I thought they would be,” I said in a small voice. “My sister said Jacob’s parents are pulling out of the merger. My family’s reputation is in ruins.”
Evan took the phone from my hand and laid it down on the coffee table. He clasped both of my hands between his and ducked down to look me in the eye.
“Forget about them,” he said. “If they care more about this business merger or their reputation than your happiness, then you don’t need them.”
