Free A Busty Bride for the Billionaire (Contemporary Erotic Romance) by Vanessa Wilde Page A
Authors: Vanessa Wilde
showed the faint hint of a late-afternoon stubble.
His long, sleek hair – pitch black, apart from a few, isolated white strands – was pulled back into a short, neat ponytail.
Kim had only seen him standing for a few seconds before he sat down a the little café table, but she would be pretty surprised to learn he was an inch under 6-and-a-half feet. He had the musculature to go with it, as well – great, broad shoulders, and thick biceps, and a barrel chest which seemed to want to break apart the seams of his white shirt, unbuttoned to his sternum.
The only thing which deviated slightly from the typical teenage girl's idle midday daydream were his narrow, heavy-lidded eyes. Not that they made him ugly in any way – just that it departed a little from the Hollywood mold. Later, Kim would find out that this was on account of his Native American heritage. At the time, she feared it was because he was so bored, she was making him sleepy.
In front of such an arresting specimen, it was no wonder Kim's subconscious was playing dirty tricks on her.
What are you doing in the same building as this guy – let alone the same table?! There's no way he's asked you out on a date... this has got to be some kid of prank...
“...Kim?”
She shook her head, to try and clear the niggling voices and wriggling doubts.
“Huh– oh, yes, sorry... I just remembered something unpleasant.”
“Hope it wasn't anything I said that set you off...”
“What? Oh, no no no, I didn't mean to say that, I... oh, nevermind, I should just shut up...”
That was met with a deep, rumbling chuckle, and the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. When he didn't say anything in return, Kim totally failed to take her own advice, and soldiered on.
“I'm sorry, I do that a lot. Space out, that is. My mom used to call me the deep-sea diver – said I couldn't hear anything when I was submerged in my thoughts...”
“Mm, yeah. You mentioned that in your blog. It's pretty endearing, as far as childhood nicknames go.”
“Yeah, I guess it is, considering...........wait, what??”
“What are you referring to with that 'what'?”
“My blog... did you just say you read that in my blog?”
The man reached down to his side and pulled out a manilla folder from the briefcase which rested against his chair.
He laid its contents out on the table: it was the details of her public profile on the dating website he had contacted her on, printed out on A4 pages.
“I guess people might forget about it, because it's only on the first page of the sign-up form, but they ask you if you have a website when they ask for your name and email. It appears on the “About Me” section of the profile, if you click through. So, it sounds like you didn't mean to put it up there, but put it up there you did.”
If she had felt embarrassed and vulnerable before, it was nothing on what Kim was feeling now. “Mortified” might capture something of it.
“You... you read my blog?..... Please tell me it's the Wordpress one I haven't updated in two years...”
“Sorry, it's the tumblr. Aww, really, don't react that way. It really isn't something to be embarrassed about. It made for really interesting reading, actually. I appreciated a lot of your, um... film criticism... and the stuff about the treatment of women in the workplace. Might sound a little far-fetched, but it actually inspired me to convene a meeting with my HR execs this week on the subject.”
He paused a moment; if Kim hadn't had both hands covering the beetroot-red of her face, she would have seen him looking pensive.
“Though, I will admit that the fan art of Christian Grey with that vampire boy from Twilight might be taking the limits of good taste a little too far... I'd never pictured Christian as a closeted gay masochist myself, personally, but I guess it'd work.”
I wanna die I wanna die I
His long, sleek hair – pitch black, apart from a few, isolated white strands – was pulled back into a short, neat ponytail.
Kim had only seen him standing for a few seconds before he sat down a the little café table, but she would be pretty surprised to learn he was an inch under 6-and-a-half feet. He had the musculature to go with it, as well – great, broad shoulders, and thick biceps, and a barrel chest which seemed to want to break apart the seams of his white shirt, unbuttoned to his sternum.
The only thing which deviated slightly from the typical teenage girl's idle midday daydream were his narrow, heavy-lidded eyes. Not that they made him ugly in any way – just that it departed a little from the Hollywood mold. Later, Kim would find out that this was on account of his Native American heritage. At the time, she feared it was because he was so bored, she was making him sleepy.
In front of such an arresting specimen, it was no wonder Kim's subconscious was playing dirty tricks on her.
What are you doing in the same building as this guy – let alone the same table?! There's no way he's asked you out on a date... this has got to be some kid of prank...
“...Kim?”
She shook her head, to try and clear the niggling voices and wriggling doubts.
“Huh– oh, yes, sorry... I just remembered something unpleasant.”
“Hope it wasn't anything I said that set you off...”
“What? Oh, no no no, I didn't mean to say that, I... oh, nevermind, I should just shut up...”
That was met with a deep, rumbling chuckle, and the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. When he didn't say anything in return, Kim totally failed to take her own advice, and soldiered on.
“I'm sorry, I do that a lot. Space out, that is. My mom used to call me the deep-sea diver – said I couldn't hear anything when I was submerged in my thoughts...”
“Mm, yeah. You mentioned that in your blog. It's pretty endearing, as far as childhood nicknames go.”
“Yeah, I guess it is, considering...........wait, what??”
“What are you referring to with that 'what'?”
“My blog... did you just say you read that in my blog?”
The man reached down to his side and pulled out a manilla folder from the briefcase which rested against his chair.
He laid its contents out on the table: it was the details of her public profile on the dating website he had contacted her on, printed out on A4 pages.
“I guess people might forget about it, because it's only on the first page of the sign-up form, but they ask you if you have a website when they ask for your name and email. It appears on the “About Me” section of the profile, if you click through. So, it sounds like you didn't mean to put it up there, but put it up there you did.”
If she had felt embarrassed and vulnerable before, it was nothing on what Kim was feeling now. “Mortified” might capture something of it.
“You... you read my blog?..... Please tell me it's the Wordpress one I haven't updated in two years...”
“Sorry, it's the tumblr. Aww, really, don't react that way. It really isn't something to be embarrassed about. It made for really interesting reading, actually. I appreciated a lot of your, um... film criticism... and the stuff about the treatment of women in the workplace. Might sound a little far-fetched, but it actually inspired me to convene a meeting with my HR execs this week on the subject.”
He paused a moment; if Kim hadn't had both hands covering the beetroot-red of her face, she would have seen him looking pensive.
“Though, I will admit that the fan art of Christian Grey with that vampire boy from Twilight might be taking the limits of good taste a little too far... I'd never pictured Christian as a closeted gay masochist myself, personally, but I guess it'd work.”
I wanna die I wanna die I
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