Only for You Read Online Free

Beautiful. Warm, but also . . .
    Dangerous.
    “Were you near Albuquerque?” he asked.
    “Uh . . . yeah, I think we were.”
    “There’s a good chance it
was
my face, then,” he said, deadpan.
    “What?” she asked, laughing. She hadn’t expected him to say that. She’d just thought the resemblance was an odd coincidence and wanted to offer some kind of lame excuse for why she kept gawping at him.
    He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I grew up on the Isleta Pueblo Indian Reservation near there. My mother was an artist, and she used both my brother and me as models at various times. I’d have to see it to be sure, but given the time period, it’s more likely me than Jake. We look alike, but my brother is a lot older than me—almost a whole generation. Jake would have been long gone by the time period you’re talking about. Mom did painted wooden carvings as well as watercolors and pottery, and she sold her work at local stores.”
    She shook her head in disbelief. “If you’re saying there’s an actual chance that it’s you, then it’s
definitely
you. I immediately noticed it when I first saw you, but thought it was too unlikely to be true. I didn’t think that man could be real.” She glanced away, embarrassed she’d muttered the private thought out loud. “I just met you tonight, but I’ve been looking at your face all this time. That’s just . . . weird.”
    “Weird?”
    “Not in a bad way,” she assured quickly.
    He was handsome, but his smile transformed his hard features to drop-dead gorgeous. Her mouth hung open at the vision. Her gaze dropped over him, despite her mental command to keep her eyes in her head. His body was big, but lean, long and rangy. He exuded strength, and not only from his personality. His near-black hair was a tousled, sexy glory. Despite the finger-combed negligence of the style, the strands were smooth and shiny. It fell several inches past his chin. Her fingertips itched to touch it.
    He took a long draw on his water, and Gia guiltily glanced away. She’d been gawking. Again.
    “So if you decided you were a New York girl at heart, how come you came to Los Angeles for college?” he asked quietly.
    “I got a good scholarship here,” Gia explained, thankful he’d offered a safe topic. “I’ll probably always feel a little out of place in California, but I had a good college experience.”
    “I know what you mean about feeling out of place.”
    She nodded. “I can imagine living on the reservation was a different world from Hollywood.”
    “I spent quite a few years in the Army and was based in several places in the Middle East and Germany, as well. But even with all the places I’ve lived, I felt like a being from a different planet coming to Hollywood.” He smiled slightly in memory. “Luckily, I liked the work so much that I’ve adapted reasonably well to the alien environment.”
    “You don’t regret it? Making your life here?” she asked him, leaning forward and grimacing slightly because the stiff breastplate pinched at her waist.
    “Once in a while, but not too often. This is my dream job. To do it, I need to be here.”
    “You must meet dozens of wannabe actors and models and the like every day, people who have migrated here with stars in their eyes,” she mused softly. “Do they ever ask your advice while you’re doing their makeup?”
    “About betting on the ten-billion-to-one lottery called Fame?” he asked dryly.
    “You did it.”
    “No. I bet on my art. If fame was part of the bargain, I’d be miles away.”
    For a moment, they sat in silence as his low, gruff voice replayed in her head with absolute certainty.
    “You never told me what you did for a living in New York. Something to do with your major?” he asked, setting aside his empty water glass. “You lit up when you mentioned you studied history.”
    Her gaze flickered across to a golden clock on a nearby table. It had taken them an hour and twenty minutes to get to