Shopping for a Billionaire 1 Read Free Page B

him and I don’t know why.
    “Declan McCormick. And you are?” Instinct makes me reach my hand out, and he’s clasping mine before we both realize it’s the toilet-contaminated hand.
    He pretends it’s perfectly normal, keeping strong eye contact and pumping my hand like it’s the handle to a well. Except his fingers are warm, soft, and inviting, the touch lingering a little too long.
    His eyes, too. They study me, and not like he’s cataloging my features so he can file a police report or have me Section 35’d for being a danger to myself and others.
    I am being inventoried in the most delicious of ways.
    As a professional whose job it is to inventory customer service in business, I have acquired a set of unique skills—but more than that, I now have a sixth sense for when I’m being detailed.
    And oh dear…there goes that flush.
    And not the toilet kind.
    I realize we’re still shaking hands, and his eyes are taking me in. “Uh, Shannon. Shannon Jacoby. Nice to meet you.” I find my voice.
    He looks around the room and bursts out laughing, a flash of straight white teeth and a jaw I want to nuzzle making me inhale sharply. That laugh is the sound of extraordinary want entering my body, taking up residence low in my belly, and now waiting for a chance to pick china patterns and paint colors to really consider itself at home.
    Go away, want. I’ve banished you.
    Want ignores me and settles in, cleaning out the cobwebs that have taken up residence where I used to allow desire and hope and arousal to live.
    Squatter.
    “Shannon, this has to be the strangest way I’ve ever met a woman.” One corner of his mouth curls up in a sexy little smile, like we’re on a beach drinking alcohol out of coconuts carved by Cupid and not in a ratty old bathroom with a fluorescent tube light that starts buzzing like a nest of mosquitoes at an outdoor blood bank.
    “You don’t get around much, then,” I say. My toes start to curl as my body fights to contain the wellspring of attraction that is unfurling inside me. No. Just… no . I can’t let myself feel this. You spend enough time trying not to feel something and all that work gets thrown away with one single flush.
    He does that polite laugh thing, eyes narrowing. I decide to just stare openly and catalog him right back. Brown hair, clipped close, in a style that can only come at the hands of a very expensive salon owner. The bluish-gray suit, textured and smooth at the same time, shimmering and flat as well under the twitchy light. Skin kissed by the sun but also a bit too light, as if he used to spend a lot of time outdoors but hasn’t recently.
    A body like a tall tennis player’s, or a golfer’s, and not my dad with his pot-bellied buddies getting in a round of nine holes at 4 p.m. just so they can have an excuse to drink their dinner. Declan is tall and sleek, confident and self-possessed. He moves like a lion, knowing the territory and owning it.
    Always aware of any movement that interests him.
    I’m 5’ 9” and he’s taller than my by at least half a foot. Tall girls always do a mental check: could I wear high heels with him? Steve hated when I wore high heels, because it put me eye-to-eye with him.
    “What are you doing in the men’s room?” he asks, smirking at me.
    I tuck my phone into the back waistband of my pants. If there’s a chance in hell it’s still on, he might see the screen and figure out who I am. My wits begin to return to me. A zero-sum game forms in my body: wit vs. a body part that rhymes with wit that starts with C and that stands for trouble.
    Wit is losing.
    “I must have gotten confused.” I fake-rub my eyes. “Forgot to grab my glasses on my way to class this morning.”
    His eyes narrow further, staring into mine. Am I imagining it, or did his face just fall a bit with disappointment? My heart shatters into a thousand tiny shards of glass that I feel like I just swallowed.
    “Class? You’re a student?” His eyes rake