Big Shot(11)

His reasoning sounded plausible enough, but she hoped he didn’t make a regular habit of stopping in. This was her little space in the morning, and she didn’t want to share it with him, not when he was so irritating and distracting. “Richard and I were just getting ready to leave. We have somewhere we need to be.” Now go away so I can think and breathe without inhaling your intoxicating cologne that makes me want to bury my face against your warm neck and get high on your scent.

At the mention of another man’s name, Wes’s gaze shifted to where Richard was sitting in the chair beside hers, his gaze narrowing slightly. Obviously, he hadn’t realized she was there with someone else and had thought that Richard was a stranger enjoying his morning coffee, like most everyone else in the place. Wes’s relaxed posture suddenly stiffened, and he studied Richard intently, as if he were sizing up the competition, which was a completely ridiculous thought to even cross her mind.

She opened her mouth to introduce the two of them, but Richard was quicker. He stood up and extended his hand toward Wes. “I’m Richard Weller, and you’re Wes Sinclair, right?”

Wes’s brows furrowed even further. “Yes.”

The two men shook hands, and Natalie was fascinated by the extra-firm grip Wes seemed to have around Richard’s palm before he let go.

“Do we know one another?” Wes asked gruffly.

Richard slid his hands into the front pockets of his pants and nodded. “We met a few months ago at a seminar for short sales and foreclosures. I also work with Natalie at Maxwell Real Estate.”

The disgruntled look on Wes’s face didn’t dissipate until he finally glanced back at Natalie. Then, it gradually dissolved into something more neutral. She wasn’t sure what to make of his odd behavior, but it was time for her to go, and she stood up, too.

“You have a meeting to get to, and I have a bet to win,” she said, keeping her tone light and cheeky. “So, I guess I’ll see you later, Big Shot.”

One of his dark brows rose, and the slow, infuriatingly sexy smile curving the corners of his full lips made her toes curl in her pumps. “Yes, I’ll definitely see you later, Minx. As for the bet, may the best Realtor win.”

“I will,” she said impudently.

He laughed, the low, husky sound adding to the tickling sensation in her belly. “We’ll see.”

He nodded at Richard, then turned and walked back toward the entrance.

Once he was gone, Richard glanced at her with a wicked grin. “God, Mr. Big Shot really is a hot piece of ass.”

“No,” she disagreed. “Most of the time he’s just an ass, nothing hot about it.”

Richard put his computer into his leather laptop bag, his gaze way too perceptive. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Minx.”

Her face warmed at the nickname Wes had recently given her, which she secretly loved but would never admit to it. “Keep telling myself what?” she asked, wondering what her friend was getting at.

“That the two of you aren’t hot for each other,” he said blatantly. “You guys act like you’re frenemies, but take it from an outsider who just saw the two of you engage in the equivalent of verbal foreplay.”

“We did not,” she refuted. But yeah, they kinda did.

Richard rolled his eyes. “And did you not see the way he checked me out when you introduced me? And it wasn’t because I’m hot and he wanted to get into my pants. He was sizing up the competition. I think Wes thinks that we are, you know.” He waggled his brows for comic relief.

It worked. She burst out laughing, because the idea of her and Richard sleeping together was absurd. The man wanted nothing to do with breasts and vaginas.

“Not to mention the way he looked at you, as if he was thinking of all the dirty things he wanted to do if he had the chance to get you naked.”

For a few moments, before Wes had realized that Richard was with her, she had felt the heat of his stare—the way his gaze had leisurely dropped to her lips, then to her chest, making her body ache in inappropriate places. “It’s nothing,” she muttered, and turned away from Richard as she shoved her iPad into her purse.

“Oh, it’s something, sweetheart,” he said, sounding more sincere now. “But you obviously don’t want to admit it.”

Not out loud, anyway. Their attraction was just all part of that frustrating push-pull between them, that back-and-forth verbal foreplay that Richard had pointed out. It had never amounted to anything and never would, because Wes seemed to have a no fraternizing with his best friend’s little sister rule that he strictly abided by.

Which was probably a good thing, considering what a player and notorious heartbreaker Wes was when it came to women. She’d already had her heart shattered once, and she was finally in a good, solid place emotionally. Given the goals she had in life that included a husband and kids, Wes Sinclair, playboy extraordinaire, did not fit the bill, and she’d be an idiot to get involved with another man who didn’t share her views.





Chapter Five





Natalie glanced from her cell phone to Richard, who was leaning a hip against her desk in her small cubicle that was her “office” at work. His arms were folded across his chest as she waited in nervous anticipation for a return call from Max at Premier Realty, who’d agreed to be the selling broker and mediator between her and Wes on the Magnolia listing to keep the bet fair.