Caress Read Free

again. It had been a long time since Nya had been up close and personal with someone who physically appealed to her so much.
    When she didn’t see him, she divided her attention between the slow-moving baggage belt and her phone, which warmed in her palm as her fingers flew over the keys. She had to act quickly. Someone had to be able to get her connected to an executive at the Harrison Tribune . Paging through her contacts, she frowned as she saw an email come in from her father. He only emailed her when he knew she would argue over what he was communicating. Her thumb hovered over her phone as she debated whether to open the message or not.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black bag with a hand-woven fuchsia tag attached to the handle. Unfortunately, it was already passing her. “Oh!” she yelped as she tried to reach out for it and dropped her phone. She knelt to retrieve it and, when she stood, she smelled something heady and masculine. Then her eyes connected with a muscled chest in a starched white button-down shirt. She looked up into dark brown eyes in a very handsome face.
    He cleared his throat. “Is this yours, miss?”
    “What?” Nya looked down and found he was holding on to the handle of her bag.
    “Oh, yes, thank you very much. Thank you!”
    “You’re welcome.” He smiled and slid the bag over to her. His teeth were brilliant, his lips divine. Close up, the man was even better looking than he’d been on the plane.
    Warmth suffused her face and she wanted to say something more—he was obviously not in a hurry to leave her side—but her phone vibrated in her hand and she looked down. The call was from Lysette. Nya pressed ignore and looked up again. She never ignored Lysette’s calls, never, but her best friend would have to understand. She glanced up at the man again and started to ask his name. Her phone vibrated again and the screen lit up. “Sorry,” she offered before looking down. It was her father. She felt her smile droop as she apologized again and answered.
    Listening to her father was exactly like listening to white noise in that the sound was incessant and didn’t really require any answers or participation. In another way it was the exact opposite of listening to white noise in that her father slowly drove the listener mad. Stress spread through her back and shoulders, knotting her muscles. Her face grew hot and her heart thudded hard in her chest. And no matter what he said to her, how angry it made her, all she could do was listen and respectfully say, “Yes, sir.”
    In two minutes she walked away, phone tucked between her shoulder and ear, dragging her bag behind her. Thankfully, the valet had her car ready. Normally she didn’t use valet, but she’d been late for her plane when she left for St. Thomas. As the valet put her bag into the back of her car, Nya’s father said goodbye, and Nya remembered that she’d left a very handsome man where he stood. Her head snapped back toward the airport as if he would still be there. He wasn’t. Her father had ruined her day in more ways than one.
    By the time Nya turned the key in the door lock of her plush home off Highway 280, frustration and exhaustion had started to take over. She dropped her bags just inside the front door and shuffled through her mail as she walked through the foyer. In her den she dropped hard into her favorite recliner, wishing for a brief moment that she hadn’t volunteered to end her vacation early. There had barely been enough time to see her sister Jenine get married because the article had broken that same day. Had her father told her about what was happening at Art Sentries earlier, or mentioned to her that a reporter had been trying to contact them regarding it, perhaps she could have gotten ahead of the story. But she understood her father well. She understood the man’s pride. He never felt a need to explain himself. To anybody. Ever.
    She knew herself to be just as stubborn sometimes, and