Trust Fund Fiance - Naima Simone Page 0,1

her back to her parents. Away from him. He should—

Reagan touched him.

Just the feel of her slim, delicate hand on his biceps was like a cooling, healing balm. It calmed the anger, the fear. Leashed the hunger. At least so he could meet her thickly lashed, entirely too-innocent eyes and not imagine seeing them darken with a greedy lust that he placed there.

“I know why I’m hiding,” he drawled, injecting a playfulness he was far from feeling into his voice. “What’s your excuse?”

Those eyes, the color of the delicious chicory coffee his mother used to have shipped from New Orleans, softened, understanding somehow making them more beautiful. And horrible.

He glanced away.

On the pretense of finishing his smoke, he shifted to the side, inserting space between them. Not that he could escape that damn scent that seemed even headier with her so close. Or the sharp-as-a-razor’s-edge cheekbones. Or the lush, downright impropriety of her mouth. The smooth bronze of her skin that damn near gleamed...

You’ve known her since she was a girl. You have no business thinking of her naked, sweating and straining beneath you.

Dammit. He narrowed his gaze on the moon-bleached vista of James’s ranch. His dick wasn’t having any of that reasoning though. Too bad. He had enough of a shit storm brewing in his life, in his family, in Wingate Enterprises. He refused to add screwing Reagan Sinclair to it.

In a life full of selfish decisions, that might be the cherry on top of his asshole sundae.

And regardless of what some people might think, he possessed lines he didn’t cross. A sense of honor that had been drilled into him by his family before he’d even been old enough to understand what the word meant. And as a little dented and battered as the Wingate name might be right now, they were still Wingates.

That meant something here in Royal.

It meant something to him.

“Let’s see.” She pursed her lips and tapped a fingernail against the full bottom curve. “Should I start alphabetically? A, avoiding my parents introducing me to every single man here between the ages of twenty-two and eighty-two. B, boring small talk about the unseasonably hot summer—it’s Texas, mind you—gel versus acrylic nails and, my personal favorite, whether MTV really did need a reboot of The Hills. Which, the only answer to that is no. And C, karma—I avoided every one of Tracy Drake’s calls last week because the woman is a terrible gossip. And now I find out that I’m seated next to her at dinner.”

He snorted. “I’m pretty sure karma starts with a K,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

“I know.” She shrugged a slim shoulder, a smile riding one corner of her mouth. “I couldn’t think of anything for C.”

Their soft laughter rippled on the night air, and for the first time since arriving this evening, the barbed tension inside him loosened.

“And I just needed air that didn’t contain politics, innuendo or cigar smoke,” she continued. The velvet tone called to mind tangled, sweaty sheets at odds with her perfectly styled hair and immaculately tailored, strapless cocktail dress that spoke of unruffled poise. Even as Ezekiel’s rebellious brain conjured up images of just how much he could ruffle her poise, she slid him a sidelong glance. “One out of three isn’t bad.”

Again, the miraculous happened, and he chuckled. Enjoying her. “I know it would be the gentlemanly thing to put this out...” he lifted the offending item between them “...but it’s one of my few vices—”

“Just a few?” she interrupted, a dimple denting one of her cheeks.

“And I’m going to savor it,” he finished, shooting her a mock frown for her cheekiness. Cute cheekiness. “Besides, no one in there would accuse me of being a gentleman.”

Dammit. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. Not the words and definitely not the bitterness. He was the carefree jokester of the Holloway brothers. He laughed and teased; he didn’t brood. But these last few months had affected them all. Turned them into people they sometimes didn’t recognize.

Talk and accusations of corruption and fraud did that to a person.

So did a headlong tumble from a pedestal, only to discover those you’d known for years were only wearing the masks of friends, hiding their true faces underneath. Vultures. Sharks.

Predators.

He forced a smile, and from the flash of sadness that flickered across her lovely features, the twist of his lips must’ve appeared as fake as it felt. For a moment, anger that wasn’t directed at himself for fucking caring about the