Tempt (Secrets and Lies #1) - Ainsley Booth

1

Hazel

What does a thirty-one-year-old self-sufficient woman do when her parents “break the news” that they won’t be home for Christmas because they’re going on a cruise to the Caribbean?

Click her heels and happily book an extravagant trip for one to an over-the-top luxury lodge in the middle of a real-life snow globe, that’s what.

And I cannot wait.

I just need to get there, which is easier said than done. I didn’t like the idea of renting a car and driving eight hours by myself, so I decided to take the train—and when one lives in a small town, that means catching a connecting train in the city.

And dealing with city people.

No offense to city people, but there’s a reason I moved to a small town—one with a walkable downtown and frequent train service to the city, of course.

I arrived in Toronto this morning on the first train from Stratford. Then I had a couple of meetings, a lovely tea for one at the King Eddie, and now I’m back at Union Station to catch another train. This one will head to Ottawa.

I adore the train. I can work, drink, and daydream, and someone else worries about getting me safely to my destination. The only thing I need to do is get myself to the gate on time, which is enough of a challenge.

Toronto’s downtown train hub is packed full of sweaty people and oversized suitcases, with wet spots all over the floor from melting snow. All of that makes navigation through the crowd extra-precarious. It’s three days before Christmas and there’s a storm brewing, so everyone who needs to get out of the city for the holidays is trying to do it now.

I dodge around a group of university students in the middle of the concourse and join the line of passengers queued up at the gate.

I’m the last to board the business class car at the front of the train. After carefully stowing my carry-on, I make my way down the car, looking for my seat. I should have a seat to myself. I always do.

Every trip, apparently, except this one. I silently groan as I realize I’m in a backwards-facing seat—fine—across from someone else.

Less fine. I don’t want to share my table.

I see a dark head of hair. Masculine hair, as much as one can anticipate that sort of thing. The long leg and big arm overflowing the generous seat is a warning sign, too. Some slick businessman, it looks like, taking up far too much space in what was going to be my writing cocoon for the next four hours.

Well, I hope he likes silence, because I’m going to ignore the fuck out of him.

He doesn’t look up as I move past and dump my messenger bag on my seat. Coat off, computer out.

And it’s because I have that emotional armour up—I’m focused on ignoring my seatmate and getting my work done—that when I sit down, and his dark gaze locks on my face with a blazing intensity, I don’t react.

We’re strangers. I owe him nothing. In the spirit of the season, I flash a polite but dismissing smile and take my seat.

Headphones up and on. Plug in the cord. Open the computer.

I ignore the weird hiccup in my pulse. Ignore the man, and his searing gaze, which he’s now thankfully dropped.

(Okay, I only know this because I looked up again. For a split-second. Curiosity will kill me as surely as it killed the cat.)

I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now. Deja vu, but not really. A weird disconnect because I’d filled in a generic proto-man as my seatmate when I saw the suit, the arm and leg taking up too much space, the roughly slicked-back, sharply side-parted haircut.

You noticed a lot about his hair. More than I’d realized, and something in my belly quivers.

His haircut doesn’t matter.

His face, his gaze, that unsettling sizzle—none of it matters.

I open my files and give myself a goal. Three more revisions before the porter comes around with the first round of drinks. Then I can close this project and free-scrawl anything I want for my blog. Write drunk, edit sober—advice not meant to be taken literally, but it’s never steered me wrong.

But the words on the screen swim in front of my eyes.

It takes a painfully long stretch of time to get into my task. Two glasses of red wine help with my concentration. Help to slow down my racing pulse and finally, thankfully, crystallize my attention.

An hour later my revisions