Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,2
danced a jig. Nate’s old buddy really did have a gorgeous smile. Not that she was noticing. His gaze swept down the length of her once more, but there was nothing heated or sensual in his examination. It was the indifferent study of a doctor—no, a surgeon—who’d seen women of countless shapes and sizes, and nothing about her slightly hourglass figure elicited an excited response.
He dragged two fingers and a thumb up and down his scruffy jaw. “You really don’t look like a movie star.”
“Because I’m standing in the rain, freezing.”
“Guess under these circumstances, you’d usually have some poor sap holding an umbrella over your head?”
“In these circumstances, I’d expect a man to have some manners and invite a lady in out of the rain.” She passed an irritated hand over her hair, which instead of being its usual bouncy, toffee-colored self, now had the texture of wet string.
“Used to men saying yes to you, aren’t you, Savannah Payne?”
Something in Glen’s edgy tone lifted the fine hairs on her nape. What, exactly, did that mean? People often assumed they knew her from the big screen—and now, because of her debut in the New Zealand TV drama, High Rollers, people assumed they knew her intimately, as if the small screen made her that much more accessible. People would be wrong.
Blue eyes drilled into her, the mocking angle of his jaw eliciting a flicker of…something…? She searched her memory. Had she met him before? A blur of faces from school days rattled through her mind. Buff, brown-haired guy with hipster glasses definitely didn’t ring any of her bells. She must be getting paranoid.
Savannah cocked her head. “I’m trying to negotiate a deal.”
“There’s no deal to be negotiated. I’m not one of your yes-men.” He made the words yes-men sound as if they were interchangeable with the words man-whores. “And since you were so generous with your offer of a night at Sea Mist, I’ll give you some legal advice. On the house. Unless you want to drag this through the Tenancy Tribunal court, by which time the fixed-term agreement will already be over, your best bet is to turn around and go back to the city. I’m not leaving until the eighteenth.”
Then he sauntered back inside, flicking a hand behind him to slam shut the door.
***
Sav stared at the door of her house and smothered the urge to stamp her foot. The rude, overbearing, arrogant son-of-a—she stalked off the deck, boot heels tapping out an echoing staccato beat. She strode across the gravel driveway to her car.
“Not leaving? We’ll see about that, Mr. Stuck-Up Lawyer.”
She made the drive to Nate and Lauren’s place in record time. Six months ago, Sav had spent a blissful week adding the finishing touches to the interior of her house, with an open invitation to Lauren’s for dinner each night. Just as well, because Sav’s cooking skills were better suited to throwing together a mixed green salad. And if she’d stuck to eating salad instead of dining out with her High Roller co-stars almost every night, she may’ve lost those pounds that had cost her the role of a drug-addicted, teenage mom.
Her hand clenched pale-knuckled around the parking brake. Squinting out at the grass between her car and Lauren and Nate’s deck, she flexed her fingers. Their house was nestled in front of a hill of native bush, with Sav’s property a short drive in one direction and Lauren’s brother, Todd, and his family also close by. The little, two-story house blazed with welcoming warmth and light.
A French door opened and a dark shape barreled onto the deck, barking like Armageddon had arrived, until Nate appeared. He laid a hand on the Rottweiler’s broad shoulders and peered at her rain-drenched windshield.
She waved and he grinned, holding up an index finger. He disappeared back inside the house, reappearing a moment later with a huge umbrella. The sight of the blue-and-white striped umbrella as Nate crossed the grass made her stomach churn.
Some sap holding an umbrella for you, Glen had said. As if she were a femme-fatale with men catering to her every need and want. Divorced for nearly a year now, she wasn’t in a hurry to let a man get close enough to hold an umbrella for her, let alone touch her.
She popped open the door and climbed out. Wet grass, under-laid with mud, squelched beneath her boot soles. Ugh. Should’ve worn her brand-new gumboots instead of packing them in the trunk. She couldn’t say she hadn’t