Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Before Christian could answer, Prue took his hand, dragged him to Chassie’s sofa, and all but shoved him in it.
Chassie’s face flamed.
I nearly snorted.
Tempie whispered something in Hamish’s ear.
Battle looked to the ceiling.
“Cider would be good, if you’ve got it,” Christian ordered, his voice deep and pleasant.
When it filled the room, Chassie’s face flamed harder.
“They have everything!” I peeped.
Battle gave me my Cosmo and a cool it! look then headed back to the cabinet.
“Hey, I’m Vivi,” I introduced myself.
He got out of the sofa just enough to offer his hand, I took it and found he had a nice, firm grip. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Hamish,” Hamish said after Christian and I broke.
They did the shake thing and then both sat back down.
After that, no one said anything.
Fortunately, by the time Battle handed Prue her old fashioned and Christian a pint glass of cold cider, Tempie came up with a conversational gambit.
“How are your studies going?” she asked Christian.
“The Downs have one of the most flourishing organic gardens I’ve ever seen,” Christian stated after taking a sip.
At his remark, I worried Chassie’s flesh would melt right off her skull Raiders of the Lost Ark style.
“I’m comparing your results to six other gardens in the area. They all use chemical compounds,” Christian went on. “You use nothing but organic compost. And the results are startling.”
“All our Chastity’s idea, you know,” Tempie drawled, gesturing to Chastity with her martini glass.
Christian turned his head to look directly at Chassie.
Chastity popped to her feet and asked me, “Is it time to mash potatoes, Vivi?”
“I—”
She slammed her daiquiri glass down, had to veritably leap over Christian’s long legs (and Battle’s) to latch on to me and tug me from my seat.
“It’s time!” she all but shouted, and as I desperately attempted not to spill any Cosmo, she dragged me from the room while I looked over my shoulder at the inhabitants of said room.
Christian looked crestfallen.
The room disappeared from view.
I left it until we were on the servants’ stairs before I pulled her to a stop.
“Get right back up there and send Prue down,” I ordered.
“But, Vivi—”
I cupped her face in my free hand and put mine in it. “Honey, I get you. This is scary. But you like him, am I right?”
“He’s really handsome,” she whispered. “And he likes plants, like me.”
“So why did you escape the room?”
“I don’t—”
“Listen, you know this is all about vibes and cues. And I don’t want to freak you even more, but you’re giving that man riotously mixed vibes and totally indecipherable cues.”
She blinked. “I am?”
I took my hand from her face and leaned back. “I know we want men to get what us wearing pretty sundresses to garden means. But let me educate you, men are clueless.”
“He tried to talk to me a little while ago,” she admitted something I already knew. “I made a fool of myself. I think it turned him off.”
“I’m certain you didn’t because he didn’t know a single person was in that room, but you.”
Hope lit her face.
I seized on it and kept at her.
“It’s going to be hard. I know it is. But you have to give him something to go on. And I can tell you, racing from a room he’s been in all of five minutes is not the cue you want to be giving him. Go back. Send Prue to help me. Or Battle. Sit with him, and…I don’t know. Ask him what those sticks are that he shoves in the ground.”
“But I know what they are. They’re soil probes.”
“Okay, then ask him what readings he’s getting on his soil probes…or something.”
“I could…maybe ask him what the title of his dissertation is,” she suggested.
“Go with that,” I encouraged.
She looked uncertainly up the stairs.
“Go, honey,” I prompted. “He’s into you. Trust me. And if he made the first move, and you froze him out, since now you’re giving him an in, I suspect, once you break the ice, he’ll take over.”
At least, I hoped so.
“I…okay,” she said.
“Okay.”
She didn’t move.
I gave her a gentle push, verbally and physically. “Go, baby.”
She gave me a wild-eyed look.
But then she went.
I watched her go.
Once she disappeared, I mumbled, “Fuck, I hope he’s not a dick.”
And I headed to the kitchen, chicken, mash, sprouts, pud…
Dinner for my people.
I was sitting cross-legged on Battle’s bed wearing nothing but the button-down he’d worn that day.
He was coming out of the bathroom in heathered gray pajama pants with a black drawstring.
He had a face like thunder.
I guessed the orgasm I gave him ten minutes ago wore off.
“Honey—” I began.
“Does Prue have some secret crush who’ll be coming to dinner next Friday?” he demanded.
I took a second to control my hilarity before I responded.
“Not that I know of.”
He stretched out beside me on the bed, head to the pillows, and lifted his hands to rub his face.