His name was Chase Blastoviak, and he didn't want to pork me.
Only he didn't use the word pork. No. Not him. What he did was drop a genuine f-bomb while informing me that he wasn't interested in doing the horizontal hokey-pokey.
With me.
As if I'd just offered.
Just for the record, I hadn't.
God, what a total jackass.
I wanted his money, not his body, even if his body was pretty darn spectacular. And as far as the money? Well, it's not like I wanted it for myself.
I'm no gold-digger. In fact, the only thing I'd ever dug was potatoes on my parents' farm. And even this activity was pretty rare, considering that tomatoes were their primary crop.
But I digress.
Already, I'd known Chase for less than five minutes, and I hated him the way my dad hated those little striped beetles that sometimes got into his tomato plants.
On the upside, Chase and I obviously agreed on one thing. We would never, ever be friends, much less anything more.
Apparently, he found me repulsive.
I didn't find him repulsive. But then again, who would? I mean, just look at the guy – not that it mattered. Underneath that pretty façade, he was rotten to the core.
It was unfortunate, too, because just ten minutes ago, I'd thought that Chase Blastoviak might be the answer to all of my prayers.
What a joke.
From the looks of things, I'd been praying in the wrong direction – not up, but down, if you know what I mean.
Okay, so maybe he wasn't technically the devil, but Chase Blastoviak was no angel, that's for sure.
But of course, I'd known that already, hadn't I?
Chapter 2
Mina
Ten Minutes Earlier
If I were smart, I wouldn't do it.
And yet, I wasn't feeling smart. I was feeling determined and just a little bit lucky. For the past three days, I'd been burning brain cells, trying to solve one heck of a sticky problem.
And there he was – my solution, standing just outside the coffee shop, where I'd been working as a barista for less than a week.
It was mid-afternoon, and the coffee shop was utterly empty, except for yours truly. See? It was luck. It had to be.
From behind the counter, I studied my quarry through the big front window. The guy was tall, dark, and impossibly handsome, with the kind of looks that would make anyone stop and stare, even if they didn't know who he was.
He was standing in profile near the coffee shop door, talking on his cell phone – or rather, listening to his cell phone, considering that his lips hadn't moved once since I'd spotted him standing there.
Whatever he was hearing, it wasn't making him happy. In fact, he looked downright ticked off, which surprised the heck out of me.
I'd seen the guy hundreds of times, but I'd never seen him looking like that. Then again, this was the first time I'd seen him in person and not on my TV screen.
Still, I knew his name as surely as I knew my own.
Mina Lipinski. That was mine. Not his. Obviously.
No. His name was Chase Blastoviak of Blast Tools. The guy was beyond famous, and not just here in Bayside, Michigan, where Blast Tools was headquartered.
Chase, along with his two brothers, starred in Blast, a weekly cable show on the Home Network, where the three brothers used their own brand of tools to remodel older homes or sometimes build new ones.
Blast was a huge hit, and was it any wonder? All three brothers were insanely gorgeous, packed with muscle, and fascinating on their own.
But together? They were a force to be reckoned with.
Thankfully, I was only reckoning with one – my preferred one for what I had in mind.
I bit my lip and continued to stare as I debated doing the unthinkable.
On the TV show, Chase wore regular work clothes – jeans and T-shirts mostly, along with classic work boots and the occasional flannel overshirt.
Not today.
Today, he was dressed for business in a dark, tailored suit that fit his masculine form to perfection, not that it mattered. A guy like him? He'd probably look terrific in a potato sack.
From the privacy of the coffee shop, I let my gaze rake the length of him. His shoulders were broad, and his hips were narrow. His legs were long, and his stance was easy, even as his face betrayed his displeasure at whatever he was hearing.
When he frowned, I frowned, too.
Sure, I was feeling lucky, but I'd be feeling a whole lot luckier if he were getting good