Shopping for an Heir Read Online Free Page B

you.” She used remarkable restraint in not peering around Gerald to get more of an eyeful of Declan McCormick’s stately form.
    Then again, Gerald was an impenetrable wall of muscle himself, not easily subverted. She’d need taller heels to peer around him. He did not move his palm from her arm, and his touch infused her, a deeply satisfying sense of connection slowly creeping along her skin, her breath quickening, his touch ringing bells inside her that had been dormant for a decade.
    “What is it?”
    “Read it. You’ll understand.” She turned on her heel and started to leave, shaking inside so hard she might trigger the New Madrid fault.
    He glared at her. “What? That’s it? Ten years and that’s it?” He pulled back, breaking contact.
    All her anxiety faded, like an antidote injected straight into the heart, his words kicking in, providing such clarity.
    “Ten years you chose, Gerald,” she hissed, mouth curling, throat seizing. “You do not get to put this on me.” Grief flared in her, a burst like a fireball, and then it turned to the ash of anger, a light coat settling over every spare surface of her heart.
    His eyebrows shot up, eyes gliding away, his nose twitching and mouth tightening as if holding back.
    Squaring her shoulders, Suzanne decided to make this easy for him. God only knew why. “My law firm is handling the estate of deceased billionaire Harold Hopewell. You’ve been named in his will.” She tapped the thick envelope in his hand. “These papers explain everything.”
    “Explain wha t?”
    “You’re his heir. One of them, at least.”
    At that moment, a leaky pipe released a drop that went ker-plunk into a ragged bucket on the floor.
    “How can I be an heir to a guy I don’t even know?” His words were about the dead billionaire, but she knew he was just trying to engage her. Make her stay.
    She looked around. She had to get out of there. “Read the papers. If you have any questions, my office number is on the letterhead.” Turning to go, she felt his gaze on her, like a touch.
    “Suzanne.” His voice was low and filled with ten years of yearning. “Please.”
    Please.
    Of all the words she’d imagined Gerald saying to her when they finally saw each other again, that was the last one she’d ever expected to hear.
    If she pivoted and caught his eye, she’d cry. Or scream. Or worse—stand there pleading with him to take her back, to undo ten years of heartache, to atone for the unspeakable pain of being unceremoniously dumped and left brokenhearted, shattered into a thousand pieces before she was stateside, left to unpack her meager civilian belongings in her parents’ house in Minnesota and try not to talk about anything but her future.
    Frozen, she stood a few feet from the doorway, the weight of her brief bag pulling on her shoulder, anchoring her in place. If he touched her again, she’d melt.
    If he touched her again, she’d explode.
    If she just stood there, letting her pulse pound through her like a helicopter blade whipping through too much thick wind, she would never move.
    Slowly, with painstaking intent, she did swivel, her heels nearly choreographed for a dance she couldn’t avoid. Meeting his eyes, she let herself feel all the emotions at once, uncensored, but only for a few seconds.
    He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just met her look head-on, the power of seconds ticking by without reprieve from each other’s look growing.
    “Please what?”
    “Please stay after class and talk with me.”
    “I can’t,” she announced in a firm voice. “I have a date.”
    Anger could do the most extraordinary things to eyes. She watched it fill his irises, clouds of ozone and shock stuffed into two orbs that looked at her through a furrowed brow.
    “You know where to find me,” she said, nudging her nose toward the thick packet in his hand. She made a huffing laugh. “Then again, you always have.”
    And with that, she took one very obvious gander at nude