Hot Mess - Elise Faber Page 0,6
toss-up. They want to keep kids secure, but you should consider that half of the proceeds could get you a very nice place in one of the nearby towns. It wouldn’t be beachfront, but it would be in a safe neighborhood and with good schools.”
“Ry is already in a good school—” A shake of her head. “And my job—”
He touched her hand. “I get it,” he said. “I really do know how important the house is to you, and I’ll do my best to keep it for you.”
“Why do I feel like there’s a but attached to that sentence?”
“Because there is,” he murmured.
Fuck.
“I’ll try. I just . . . I have to tell you that I don’t know if I’ll succeed.”
Shannon’s eyes slid closed. “Okay,” she whispered then sighed and stood. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
“I’m here for you.”
Another man.
Another promise.
Another assurance that she didn’t think would be kept.
Four
Sand Toys Lead To A Gut Punch
Finn
He knocked on the door of the cute little bungalow that was next to his, a pail of sand toys in his hand. It was around lunchtime, and he was met with an adorable face peeking through the glass panel, its paisley curtain shoved carelessly to the side.
Freckles on a nose.
Eyes more brown than blue.
“Mom!” she yelled. “It’s a man!”
“Grab your book and take it onto the deck, honey. You need to finish up your summer reading,” came a female voice—not yelling, but still clearly heard because the windows along the front of the house were open to let in the fresh ocean air.
The little girl made a face but stepped back from the door, and Finn heard the pounding of footsteps on the floor.
A few seconds later, the knob turned, and a woman stood in front of him.
Gut punch.
The pain in her eyes was a fist to the stomach, hurting like hell, stealing his breath, burning through him.
And yet, she was beautiful.
Not a hair out of place. Her body was clad in a pretty blouse and form-fitting jeans, but with bare feet, a pop of red on her toes, on her lips. She looked more model than mom in the pale pink silk with long, dark hair flowing down her back in shining waves. His fingers itched to stroke, if only to prove to himself that the locks would be as soft as they looked. A cluster of bracelets on her arm clinked together as she lifted a hand, shielding her startling blue eyes from the sun.
Insane.
He saw beauty all the time, worked with some of the most beautiful females on the planet. That this woman should arrest some part of him, render him frozen in inaction just staring at her, when he was quite literally trained to always have a soundbite, to always be charming—
He was literally losing his mind.
But then again, that was why he was here, wasn’t it?
Well, not in front of this actual house, but in Stoneybrook in the first place.
An actor has one meltdown . . .
“Hi,” she said, startling blue eyes careful. “Are you . . . um . . . new in town?”
He opened his mouth, holding up the bucket, when the little girl he’d seen in the window came barreling through, book clutched in one hand, stuffed fox in the other, and nearly knocking him over.
The girl was fast and strong.
“Whoa,” he said, rocking back.
“Sorry!” she called, skidding her way to a deck chair.
“Rylie.”
Just her name. In a tone that brokered no argument, but wasn’t raised in volume or tinted with anger.
Model. Mom. Superhero.
This woman could be all three.
Rylie stopped, set her things down, then came over wearing a guilty expression on her face. “I’m sorry I ran into you, Mr.—”
“Stoneman,” he said, filling in the blank and not considering that it was bad for him to have given his real name when he was supposed to be in the tiny East Coast town hiding and quote-unquote-finding himself while on his break for ‘exhaustion’ (direct quote there, from his publicist). “Finn Stoneman.”
“Mr. Stoneman,” Rylie repeated.
He glanced from the eyes beneath him—blue with streaks of brown—to those next to him—the arresting clear blue of a summer’s sky—and hesitated for a moment, not sure what to say. But there wasn’t any recognition in the mom-slash-model-slash-superhero’s eyes—and not to be an arrogant asshole, but how was that even possible with his face on every magazine, every news site, every morning TV show? When his name had carried many of the big blockbuster films of the last decade?