I turned and looked around the table, but stopped suddenly as I found myself staring into the same deep, dark midnight-blue eyes that had captivated me the night before.
“No,” my mystery man murmured, his gaze locked on me, “I can’t imagine Kingman’s would do well without him at all.”
4
Cameron
It took everything in me not to stand and take hold of him so he couldn’t walk away. When I looked up to see who Rita Bowen was talking to, every drop of air was squeezed from my lungs. I was stunned because, dear God, what were the chances?
I had been sitting there at dinner, feeling like my skin was too tight, anxious, checking my text messages every couple of minutes to see if there was any word from Doug. I’d finally broken down and texted him to ask if there was any sign of the Good Samaritan. Sadly, Doug reported, there was no sign of him. And then…there he was. Jeremiah.
“I noticed you called in my mother.” Mr. Bowen grinned up at him. “That’s a brilliant way to get my son back in line without hitting him upside the head with one of his precious pans.”
He glanced at me, then returned his attention to Mr. Bowen. “Yeah, I—that’s what I thought.”
“You know this place like the back of your hand, Jere,” Mr. Bowen complimented him as Drake put an arm around the back of my chair. “It’s amazing.”
Jeremiah scowled suddenly, and I didn’t understand why, but then I had this weird epiphany, which never happened to me. It wasn’t as if I walked around and thought, “Who could want me? Who could be jealous over me?” I wasn’t stupid. I knew what I looked like. I was a mix of my parents, who were both beautiful people. My father, at sixty, with his deep tan skin, dark blue eyes, and dirty-blond hair now shot through with white, still had women and men watching him and smiling, even reacting with an occasional stutter. He’d gifted me with his thick gilded hair and sapphire eyes.
My mother, with her auburn mane and hazel-green eyes, classically appealing, had given me her chiseled bone structure and pale coloring. I came out handsome because of genetics. So when I was hit on, I understood. And even though, up until today, I had never noticed Drake being even remotely interested in me, I got that he was now, because of how I’d been at the morning meeting. I was more open, looser, easier. But what he didn’t understand was that it was the man in front of me who’d kick-started the change. We were amazing in bed. He’d known what I wanted, needed, and whether that was because he’d slept with so many people or he knew intuitively, I didn’t care. I wanted to talk to him, because if the connection was the same out of bed as it was in…I needed to take him home with me.
Having Drake near me, touching me, was of no consequence. Only Jeremiah mattered.
“I—” he began and stopped, and then looked back at Mr. Bowen. “So you’re having a meeting back here?”
“Yes,” Mr. Bowen told him, and as I sat there at the table, I wished he was standing between me and Mrs. Bowen instead of between her and her husband.
The black T-shirt he was wearing fit like a second skin, hugging the shoulders I’d clung to, encasing the chest that had been pressed to mine and the rippled abs I had run my tongue over. And yes, the idea of being under him was paramount in my mind, but even bigger, surprisingly, was the desire to spend time with him.
“These men represent Axton, who wanted to buy the place and turn it into a Country Porch.”
His gaze met mine, and on top of the irritation I saw over Drake’s closeness to me came the betrayal. Like he’d slept with the enemy. It made perfect sense. If the Bowens sold, he might still have a job, more than might from what the owners were saying. Clearly he was in his element, but nothing was certain with a corporation coming in. I’d seen it happen in my own company. Whenever Berg and Stein acquired a new firm, lots of people were let go or brought in to lower positions. Jeremiah was probably thinking I was the devil incarnate.
“We explained that we don’t just own the building and the land it sits on but five miles up this road as