Notorious in Nice Read Free Page A

the pulse shattering every thought in her brain beat loud enough for him to hear.
    “Yes.”
    “Sir, you’re ready to order?”
    “About time. Three of your biggest, juiciest hamburgers and double portions of french fries. What will you have, Terry?”
    Su-Lin sucked in her breath as she felt his gaze on her.
    “Ditto. Add a Heineken to the order, will you? Jenny, would you like something more substantial than that glass of water?”
    She shot a surreptitious glance at Aunt Emma, and her shoulders slumped at the woman’s pinched features. When her aunt had found her having a glass of wine at the hotel’s bar last night, she had made more than one remark about young women drinking alcohol.
    “James, Emma!” came the shouted greeting from across the restaurant.
    Su-Lin didn’t recognize the couple coming toward them, but then again, six weeks ago she hadn’t known of her relatives’ existence, far less their friends’. The noonday sun outlined the couple, and even shading her eyes, she could only make out their silhouette.
    Aunt Emma’s lips spread into an unaccustomed smile, baring a chipped canine and two rows of ivory-rimmed yellow around the perimeters. She stood up, hands outstretched.
    Tanned to a shade darker than a Brazil nut, the woman approaching appeared all angles and planes, her small head perched on a long neck and an even-longer torso and legs. She looked like a cutout body with a mismatched face. Su-Lin stifled a giggle, but a peep of sound escaped.
    Terrence, in the middle of rising to his feet, swept her a glance.
    Guilt at her unkind thoughts washed over her, and she clamped her lips together.
    When Aunt Emma made the introductions, Su-Lin remained seated. She muttered hello even though she hadn’t caught the couple’s names.
    After shaking hands with the man and woman, Terrence slouched into the overstuffed wicker chair, shifting it closer to Su-Lin’s. The slight grate of wood on concrete went unnoticed.
    “Aren’t you itching to try out another head on that body?” he whispered into her ear, his warm, smoky breath fanning her neck. “One more birdlike?”
    A surprised smile twitched her lips upward, and she slid sideways on the cushioned seat to fully face him. And just like that the world faded away, and she drowned in those gray lagoons, tumbling into an Alice in Wonderland parallel reality.
    His hand slid along the wooden back of her chair, and one finger trailed her shoulder blade. “I need to kiss you, darlin’. Go visit the powder room. I’ll be there in a second.”
    Amid a stream of introductions, vacuous chatter, and drink orders, Su-Lin tried to decipher if she’d really heard those words, if this god of a man actually wanted to kiss her . She couldn’t focus, couldn’t follow the conversation, and her eyes couldn’t leave his face, his mouth.
    As he settled back into the chair, he said, “I’ll go first.”
    She watched as he threw his napkin on the table, white on white, thick fingers brown against the fabric, and followed his tight butt and warrior shoulders as he stalked to an alcove across the room. When he turned around under the shadowed arch and crooked a finger, she rose to her feet, muttered an excuse, and headed in his direction.
    He’d disappeared by the time she reached the arch and uncertainty tangled her feet, making her stumble. Su-Lin rested a palm on a faux-aged oak door to prevent a fall.
    It whipped open.
    She gasped.
    Terrence curled an arm around her, lifted her off her feet, and whirled about so his broad back held the door shut.
    One hand tipped her chin up.
    She blinked.
    Her mouth went dry.
    Excitement and fear crested and fell, climbing higher as their locked gaze strained over tens of seconds.
    “We can hook up tonight, darlin’. But I need something to tide me over.”
    His voice sounded gruff, clipped, as if words proved an effort.
    Su-Lin’s knees buckled and the arm circling her waist firmed, curving her into his body.
    His tongue