Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(6)

“Hey!” he yelled. “Can you hear me now?” He huffed with annoyance, pulling the phone away from his ear and squinting at it before trying again. “Pete? It’s Erik. Can you hear me?” He set the glass down on the balcony’s wooden railing and gave his phone his full attention. Staring down at it, he muttered, “Shit. No reception.”

It’s Erik.

Erik.

His name is Erik.

Feeling a sharp burn in her lungs, Laire realized she’d been holding her breath and sucked in a huge gulp of air as she stared up at him, frozen in the moment, utterly mesmerized.

She had never seen a more perfect, more handsome person in her entire life.

The sun glinted off his dark hair and wrapped his body in gold, making him appear godlike so very far above her. Were she the type to swoon, Laire imagined she would have been a puddle of goopy longing on the ground below him, content to sacrifice her pride for a glimpse at his beauty.

“Erik, honey? Can you come down here please?”

The voice was loud near her ear and startled Laire, who whipped her head around to find a woman standing directly behind her, looking up at Erik. She was tall and elegant, with very dark brown hair in a tidy chignon. Wearing a chic black bathing suit and a patterned sarong, she could have walked out of a magazine.

“Mom, there’s no reception here!”

“We’re in the wilds,” she said, taking off her sunglasses to reveal deep brown eyes fringed with dark lashes. “I need to know where you want me to put you, Hillary, Peter, and Vanessa tonight. Please come down for a moment, won’t you?”

Erik’s mother turned back toward the lawn, the shiny gold bracelets on her wrist clinking as she walked away.

Looking down at her dull black boots, which had a sheen of dried salt on them from the trip over, Laire realized how incredibly out of place she was, and her cheeks flushed. She had no business mooning over Prince Erik. Keeping her head down, she started walking toward the side of the house, but his voice stopped her once again.

“Hey!”

She leaned her head back, shielding her eyes, her feet unwilling to keep walking away if there was the slightest chance he was speaking to her.

And the miracle of it all?

He was.

“Hey,” he said again, resting his elbows on the deck railing and grinning down at her.

“M-me?”

“Yeah. You,” he said, nodding at her. “Hey.”

“H-hey,” she squeaked, shocked she was able to respond at all.

“You workin’ the party?”

“Um . . .” He’s talking to me. He’s talking to me. “N-no. I’ve got crabs.”

I’ve got crabs.

Oh my God.

I did not just say that.

His eyebrows shot up, and his grin widened into a full-blown smile, accompanied by a soft chuckle. “You do, huh? Well, that’s too bad.”

Please, earth, open up and swallow me whole.

Sadly, it didn’t.

“N-no! I mean . . . I mean, I’m delivering crabs. I don’t have them! I don’t have crabs!”

He laughed again, this time a rich, warm belly laugh that made her insides turn to goo.

“Glad to hear it, Freckles,” he said, picking up his glass and taking a sip.

Said freckles burned so hot, she was certain her cheeks were maroon. “I have to go.”

“Where to?” he asked.

She pointed to the corner of the house. “Kitchen.”

“Wait, where?” He cocked his head to the side as though he was having trouble hearing her.

. . . or understanding her.

Her accent. It was strong because she was so nervous.

“The kitchen,” she articulated carefully.

“Ahhhhh. Right. To give them crabs?” He was barely able to finish his question because he started laughing again.

She took a deep breath and shook her head, willing this entire situation to be somehow banished from the fabric of time. Except . . .

Except no.

She wouldn’t trade it. Not a second of it, crabs and all.

Glancing back up at him, she allowed herself—just for a moment—to trace the perfect lines of his face, to memorize it, to keep it safe inside her heart so she could pull out the memory and gaze at it like a picture whenever she wanted to: beautiful Erik, the black-haired prince of Utopia Manor, smiling down at her.

“Bye,” she murmured, forcing her feet to start moving again.

Flustered by a combination of humiliation, bewilderment, and lust, once she rounded the corner of the house, she stopped and leaned her head against the clapboard, closing her eyes and pressing her hands to her cheeks. She sighed, immediately conjuring the memory of Erik’s smile again and savoring it before tucking it safely away.

And then, a proud realist, she opened her eyes and reminded herself who she was: Laire Cornish from Corey Island, delivering crabs to a mansion for a posh party. A delivery girl. A fisherman’s daughter. Nothing less. But certainly nothing more to someone as rich and beautiful as the young man on the balcony.

They had shared a moment, sure. But that’s all it was: a moment that was already gone.

Thus grounded, she stepped away from the house and walked purposefully through the open door of the kitchen to find the catering manager and make her father’s delivery.