Elizabeth Lennox - The Berutelli Escape #2 - The Billionaire's Secretive Enchantress
The Billionaire's Secretive Enchantress (The Berutelli Escape #2)
Elizabeth Lennox
romance/billionaire
Prologue
Sierra stared at her sister closely, not understanding what was wrong. Something had disturbed her normally unflappable sister and it scared her. “Marissa, what’s happened?”
She felt her sister shiver and a moment later, Marissa simply disappeared into the house. Sierra watched carefully, glancing at her father to see if he’d seen the escape as well. Hopefully not and Marissa could make a clean getaway. But as Sierra surveyed the crowd of people around her father’s luxurious pool, her father’s suspicious eyes were following his eldest daughter closely. The look she saw in those dark, evil depths indicated that he definitely wasn’t happy about his eldest daughter’s disappearance.
Sierra was just about to try and get her sister’s attention, to call Marissa back but her eyes, and her breath, were snagged by a tall, gorgeous man who stepped out onto the flagstone patio at that moment. She gasped, her body frozen in stunned fascination as the strange, attractive man looked around, his eyes seeming to take in all of the important details. Unfortunately, Sierra wasn’t one of those details, but why would she be? A man as striking as he was wouldn’t look twice at a young, skinny teenager who hadn’t a hope of blossoming into the kind of woman who probably caught his eye. Even at eighteen, Sierra hadn’t formed the curves of a woman, not even a hint of what might happen. It hadn’t ever bothered her until this moment, until she’d seen this man. And had his eyes pass over her, barely even seeing her.
She wasn’t a raving beauty. Her best asset, her long, brown hair, was tied behind her and braided down her back. That left her skinny, gangly arms and legs left for him to see and they weren’t very interesting. She sometimes thought her eyes were pretty, but there was only so much one could do with boring, blue eyes.
In that same instant, her father noticed the man as well and Sierra’s heart sank with disappointment. With a lurch, her father stepped around his contemptible minions hovering like gnats around the bar and moved over to the tall, dark haired stranger, greeting him effusively and Sierra wished with all her heart that this one man with his earthy looks, handsome demeanor and bulging muscles that strained the fine cotton shirt stretched over his broad shoulders, wasn’t one of her father’s pathetic, rock-slithering underlings.
Sierra watched him with a sinking heart, wondering why he would even associate with her father and his ilk. The stranger certainly didn’t look like the rest of the men surrounding the pool with their gaudy, thick, gold chains and their ill-fitting shirts, most of them with bellies that protruded repulsively over their belts. No, this new man appeared to be refined, dignified. He had no paunch at all. In fact, she suspected that he actually had ridges on that flat stomach of his. There was just something about the way he held himself, the way he walked, with confidence and elegance, that told her he worked out a great deal and took too much pride in his appearance to allow himself to get flabby.
In addition, there wasn’t any jewelry on him at all, not even a tacky, pretentious, pinky ring. His white, tailored shirt was tucked neatly into his pressed slacks without any overlap. In fact, he looked more muscular than all of the men combined.
In a word, he was gorgeous!
But what was he doing here? Her father seemed to be excited to see him and she watched with growing disappointment as her father walked the man over to the others by the bar, all of them looking eager to greet this new person into their midst simply because her father was introducing him to everyone. That was a sure sign that the stranger was important.
The men who hung around her father might not be the best and brightest at math or science, but they were experts at reading body language, understanding politics and sucking up to the important people. In other words, they had street smarts. They knew how to survive.
Sort of, she thought with sadness since there had been men at her father’s previous parties who were just as street savvy but had mysteriously disappeared.
Briefly, she noticed the man’s dark eyes glance in her direction. Did he hesitate when he saw her? Or was it just her hopeful imagination? The moment was brief