Page 32 of The Sun & Her Burn

“Because you make me pretty dresses,” she corrected. “I’m with you for your clever fingers, Nea. Don’t forget that!”

I was giggling, staring down at my billfold, when I crashed into someone on the other side of the wall.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I gushed immediately, raising my hands to press against a decidedly male chest so I could catch myself from falling into it completely. “I apologize, sir.”

I looked up just in time to see vivid green eyes darken, a sharp muscle ticking in a square clenched jaw dusted with golden stubble.

My breath left me on a long whoosh.

Adam Meyers stood before me—against me, really—staring down at me with an almost murderous expression on his unfairly handsome face.

God, how unjust was it that men just got so much better looking with age?

The last time I’d seen Adam in person was a decade ago, on one of the last nights of his marriage to Savannah when she had called in my mom to soothe her, and Miranda hadn’t had time to dump me at home before heading over.

I’d seen Adam in the kitchen at the back wall of windows looking out over the moonlight turning the pool water silver and limning the guesthouse in shadows. He had looked so sad then, I’d almost gone to him.

But who was I to comfort him?

A sixteen-year-old nobody who had only spent one beautiful afternoon with him.

The years had added handsome crow’s feet to the corners of those vibrant eyes, a hint of silver above the temples in his golden hair. This close, I could find no fault with his beauty. He was perfectly symmetrical, his mouth wide and firm, his chin strong and slightly dimpled.

The desire to bite it was sudden and fiercely shocking.

“Linnea,” he said in that posh British accent that made my name sound like a poem. “I was hoping to run into you.”

I lifted my hands between us limply and offered a crooked smile. “Tada!”

His somber expression didn’t even twitch.

I swallowed thickly.

“I would like to speak with you.”

“Um, well, I’m working right now and we’re slammed, so I don’t think—

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Adam assured me. “I’m seated in your section.”

I blinked at him.

“Perhaps you could see me to my seat,” he suggested in a way that made it seem more like an order.

I was surprised by the way it affected me because I was a fiercely independent woman raised by a father and three uncleswho let me run wild most of my childhood. Male authority figures did not feature heavily in my life, and normally, I would have snapped at someone for ordering me around.

But there was something about Adam’s cool-toned arrogance, a highborn haughtiness that made my pulse race with something other than indignation.

Of course, I couldn’t let him know that.

“Usually the host does that,” I said mildly before shaking my hand holding the billfold. “And I have to drop this bill at a table before I go to the kitchen and deliver dishes for a few other tables. I’ll be with you shortly.”

“You know, for someone so eager to be my paramour, I expected you to have a better attitude,” he had the absolute audacity to say to me before turning on his expensive leather shoe and walking away from me.

A sound of frustration worked itself up my throat without my permission.

Who even said words like “paramour” anyway?

“Was thatAdam Meyers?” Rozhin asked from behind me on a hiss. “Fuck, he’s hotter than sin, isn’t he?”