Page 20 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)
ADAM
“ A bsolutely not.”
“Adam,” Linnea said with a bright laugh. “Don’t be a snob.”
“It’s not a matter of snobbery, Linnea. It’s a matter of safety. You have to be at least ten years younger than this thing.”
She shrugged, but did not deny it. Instead, she stepped forward to open the passenger door of the car and gestured gallantly for me to get inside. “Your chariot awaits, kind sir.”
There was no way I was getting into the ancient Jeep Wrangler in a truly offensive shade of yellow that Linnea claimed was her “baby.”
“I think you’ll see that the number I proposed to give you in exchange for our three-year arrangement was more than generous enough to afford to buy yourself a working vehicle.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, three million dollars is overkill, don’t you think? I told you, I just need enough to make Miranda safe and comfortable.”
“A million a year seems about appropriate for putting up with my grumpy arse,” I quipped dryly just to see her smile. “So I insist you accept it and use some of the funds to buy something roadworthy.”
“I’ll consider it,” she said after a moment. “But for now, we have to hustle so we won’t be late. Get in.”
“Why don’t we take one of my cars?” I suggested, walking backward with one hand in my pocket to press the button on my garage door opener.
Behind me, the mechanism whirred as the panels lifted to reveal the interior of the four-car garage. Inside, my Aston Martin DB6 Volante gleamed in one bay. The other cars within were more practical or flashy, but nowhere near as beloved.
Linnea, mouth open to argue with me no doubt, stopped before saying a word at the sight of the Aston.
“That’s the car you had in Croyde Bay.”
I nodded, watching as she moved toward the Aston because I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her since she arrived twenty minutes ago in black leggings that clung intimately to her hips and arse and a tiny pink sports bra that cupped her breasts almost obscenely.
Her shoes were the same bubble-gum pink and matched the stitching on her high athletic socks.
Even in workout clothes, she was stunning with an eye for design that made sense given what Sebastian had relayed about her love for making clothes.
She ran her fingertips along the glossy hood the way someone might touch a lover.
“A much better option than your banana wagon,” I declared, moving toward her because I could not help myself.
I was used to being the center of gravity in any situation, both because of my career and because of the force of my personality.
Linnea wasn’t forceful or persuasive, but I felt an elemental draw to her, the way a flower grows toward the light.
She didn’t demand attention, but something about her was magnetic.
“My banana wagon is named Little Miss Sunshine,” she countered, bending over the driver’s side door to look at the dashboard. “But this is a lovely car.”
“You can drive if it means we leave behind your yellow death trap,” I offered, surprised by myself even as I said the words.
I did not let other people drive me.
Not since Sebastian.
It wasn’t just about control, though that was a large part of it. I simply couldn’t stand the idea of looking toward the driver’s seat and seeing anyone other than Seb behind the wheel.
I wanted to take back the offer, but Linnea was throwing her long, wavy hair over her shoulder to smile brightly back at me.
Bloody hell, I was fucked.
“Awesome,” she said happily, straightening and clapping her hands together before making a grabbing motion at me. “Gimme the keys.”
With a weary sigh, I went to the hooks by the door and pulled the key ring off before tossing it to her. She caught it easily, her bra riding up as she stretched overhead, revealing the soft underswell of one breast, starkly pale against the depth of her otherwise tanned skin.
My mouth went dry, and for the first time in ages, a rush of unmanufactured lust sparked through my blood.
Could I really spend the next three years with this gorgeous creature and resist my wicked nature enough not to touch her?
I curled my hands into fists and walked around to the passenger seat.
Linnea was already secured beneath her seat belt, adjusting the rear-view mirror and then smoothing her hands over the wheel. There was a little self-satisfied smile on her lips like a cat that got the cream.
I groaned. “You just played me, didn’t you?”
She laughed and I found that I liked when she did that. It almost made me want to smile, too.
I frowned instead, irritated with us both.
“Aw, don’t be grumpy that I manipulated you into letting me drive this beauty,” she sing-songed, before turning on the engine.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, ignoring the fact that we had spent a total of four hours together, and I was already letting her disrupt my routines.
No one had surprised me in years, and the sensation was not a comfortable one.
Linnea’s grin was wicked as she pulled her sunglasses from the collar of her tee and slid them over her eyes.
They were enormous and white, almost retro.
They shouldn’t have looked good on anyone, but she looked somehow right sitting in my vintage car with her golden hair streaming behind her and those glamorous shades hiding her eyes.
“I hope you aren’t afraid of heights,” she quipped as she turned the dial on the radio to a familiar pop song station.
“You do know we are meant to be seen out together in public,” I reminded her.
“Oh, don’t worry, people will see evidence of our date. Besides, I think you could use some loosening up, and if we just go to some fancy restaurant downtown, there is no way I’ll get to know the real you.”
The real me.
What a concept.
I had not made any new friends or true connections in years, as if my heart had frozen after the trauma of losing my male lover and my wife a decade ago.
Perhaps it had.
And that almost painful sensation in my chest now that Sebastian was back in my life, thrusting Linnea into it too, was the return of feeling to that essential organ.
“I am much less interesting than the characters I play on screen,” I warned her, uncharacteristically defensive.
“I highly doubt that. Let’s play a game.”
“A game,” I echoed.
“Yes, it’s called questions. I can ask you anything, and you have to answer honestly, but I have to do the same.”
“That isn’t a game, Linnea. It’s an interrogation.”
“Po-tate-oh,” she said, “poh-tah-toh. You can go first if you’re scared.”
I wanted to argue that this was a childish game, but I was curious about her, too.
What kind of girl changed her whole life to take care of a mother who didn’t deserve her?
What type of woman agreed to a fake marriage with a grumpy celebrity for three years of her life when she was young, and gorgeous, and fun enough to find true love herself?
“If your mother and money weren’t obstacles, what would you be doing right now?”
She hummed, drumming her fingers along to the beat of the music as we drove out onto the highway heading south.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about that,” she mused, almost a little surprised. “Even before Miranda got sick, I had my dad and uncles to take care of.”
“Usually that’s the other way around, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Probably, but my dad was only twenty-two when I was born, and his brothers were all still in their teens. I kind of feel like I grew up with them. They started a boat charter company when I was a kid, and I was helping them out before I needed a training bra.”
A surprised chuckle worked its way free from my throat.
She was so guileless it was impossible to guard myself against it.
I had spent years erecting walls against the kind of cultivated pressure of personas that abounded in Hollywood and back home in the aristocratic circles of my father, but Linnea’s bright personality warmed me like sun through the woodgrain.
“I would be acting,” she continued, weaving through traffic like an LA native.
“Television or film?”
“Film,” she said instantly, then winced.
“Not that I’m some highbrow who thinks one is better than the other.
I just like the idea of the versatility, traveling to different places to shoot, and donning new characters every year.
There has always been a great deal of sameness in my life, and I developed a craving for change. For excitement.”
The words shouldn’t have been erotic, but somehow, they made my blood heat. Change? Excitement? Those were things I was capable of giving her in spades.
If only our agreement allowed for a baser kind of understanding.
I thought of Sebastian’s uncharacteristic snappishness when I’d flirted with her about that very idea, and my gut cramped.
He was attracted to her. That much was obvious.
Any man with half a pulse would have been.
More than her build—her heavy breasts, the nip in her waist, those endless legs caramelized from long hours in the sun, curiously attractive feet ending in toes painted sunshine yellow—she had an innate sensuality that spoke like a whisper in the dark.
It begged you to wonder what you might do to her and she to you in the deepest hours of the night with only the moon to witness your shared depravities.
The idea of Sebastian and her together was one I steadfastly did not allow my brain to conjure or else, I knew, it would be all I thought of.
But he was attracted to her and for some reason, he had decided that instead of dating her, he would offer her up on a silver platter to me , the man who had wronged him so terribly ten years ago.
Why?
The question plagued me, one of many that kept me up at night lately and left me irascible in the morning.
No matter the reason, I couldn’t afford to enter into a sexual agreement with Linnea, even if she was interested, without potentially hurting Seb.