If the Sun Never Sets - Ana Huang Page 0,27

turned the wheel. Even in a simple white T-shirt and jeans, he could melt the panties off a nun. “I forgot how snippy you get when you’re hungry.”

“I’m not snippy.”

So what if she was? Farrah only had a bagel and coffee for breakfast, and that’d been hours ago. When she wasn’t fed, she got a little…well, snippy.

That, plus Blake was acting weird. Not in an overt way. He’d been a perfect gentleman all day. He’d picked her up, let her choose the playlist with no complaints—not even when she played five Taylor Swift songs back to back—and didn’t blink an eye when she spilled water on her shirt.

Water. On her white shirt. And not a single comment, not even a glance. He’d merely handed her a napkin and hummed along to “Blank Space” while she dabbed at her semi-transparent top.

Which is a good thing, Farrah reminded herself. It wasn’t like she wanted any extra attention from Blake, aside from what their professional relationship entailed.

Heat rose on her cheeks when she remembered their near kiss. She’d woken up the next morning hungover and mortified. They technically hadn’t done anything, but the whole experience felt so intimate they might as well have had sex.

At least, Farrah thought so. Judging by Blake’s cool attitude, he didn’t feel the same way.

They walked in silence toward the diner. The beautiful blue skies from earlier that morning had darkened into an ominous slate grey, and Farrah smelled the earthy promise of rain in the air.

Despite the few empty parking spaces, the inside of the diner overflowed with patrons, and Blake and Farrah waited thirty minutes before the hostess showed them to a table. By the time they received their food—well over an hour after they’d parked—Farrah was ready to snap someone’s head off.

“Jesus.” Blake’s jaw dropped as Farrah tore into her chicken sandwich with a gusto she usually reserved for Anthropologie sales and Henry Cavill. “You’d give some of my college teammates a run for their money. And these are three-hundred-pound linebackers we’re talking about.”

Farrah washed down her food with a healthy gulp of her chocolate milkshake. “I’m hungry.”

“I can tell.” One of Blake’s dimples peeked out before it disappeared, and her stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.

They lapsed into silence.

Farrah was beginning to think aliens had kidnapped the real Blake and replaced him with a robot version of himself. He was never this quiet. She felt like she was in the backseat of an Uber with a driver who didn’t particularly care to converse with his customers.

“I didn’t do this for the money, by the way.” Farrah tried to fill the silence.

Blake arched a questioning eyebrow.

“The road trip,” she clarified. “I found the trunk on the store’s website and it seemed so perfect for your living room. All the other trunks I found were off. Weird color, wrong size, ugly details. I didn’t specifically choose an item that couldn’t be shipped so I could bill you more hours.”

His laugh boomed against the chatter in the diner. “It’s okay. I didn’t think you were trying to swindle me.”

That was it. No teasing. No banter. Just, “it’s okay.”

Frustration coiled in Farrah’s gut. Why? She had no idea. This was what she wanted. A relationship in which they were designer and client, nothing more.

So why did she feel so uneasy?

“Well, thank you for driving me. I know you must be busy, so I appreciate you taking the time.”

“No problem.”

Farrah grit her teeth. She wanted to shake Blake until more words tumbled out of him because he was freaking her out.

Their waitress, a Rachel Bilson lookalike with a toothy smile, swooped in. “How’s the food? Can I get you anything else?” She directed her question at Blake. Farrah might as well be invisible.

Blake’s dimples showed up in their full glory. “The food’s great.” He glanced at Farrah. “Do you need anything?”

“No.”

He appeared unfazed by her curt response. “We’re all good, thanks.” He upped the wattage of his smile, and Farrah swore the waitress nearly melted into a puddle at his feet.

As the other woman tottered away on shaky legs, Farrah drained her milkshake with one long, hard slurp. The straw rattled angrily at the bottom of her empty glass.

“Do you want another milkshake? I can call her back,” Blake offered, still so annoyingly, irritatingly polite.

“No, thanks.” The way Rachel Bilson 2.0 eyed Blake, like he was a juicy steak and she hadn’t eaten in months, rankled Farrah more than it should have.

She took