by Amy DeLuca
He’d prevailed on Hap’s friend Mary Ellen to redesign and furnish his own suite in preparation for Kristal’s arrival. It looked great to him, but what did he know? Kristal had seemed to like it, and that was all that mattered.
“Thank her yourself,” Hap said. “She’s coming over in half an hour to make over everyone else’s rooms. She mentioned being extra eager to get a look at the master bedroom,” he added with an exaggerated eyebrow waggle.
“She already has. That’s where Kristal is staying,” Hunter said.
Paul shot up out of his chair. “You moved her into your bedroom?”
Rolling his eyes, Hunter bounced his hands in front of him in the universal sign for calm down. “I moved out of it, idiot. I’ll be staying in a guest room while she’s here.”
Josh gave him a bewildered glance. “Why did you give her your room?”
“Because it’s the nicest one. I’m being a good host.” Not wanting to discuss it further, Hunter changed the subject. “Now can we try to get some work done before the film crew comes back from lunch? We’re behind.”
“And whose fault is that?” Reid asked.
Hap and Hunter pointed at each other simultaneously then burst out laughing.
By the end of the second week the hilarity had died down considerably.
The filming seemed to be going well, and everyone was getting along. The guys’ fears about having Kristal living there seemed to have been replaced by sheer delight at her presence.
But Hunter couldn’t share in it. Not that he didn’t love having her around. He did. Too much. She was even sweeter, and funnier—and sexier—than he’d realized.
Having known her for so long—but only from afar—it seemed almost surreal to see her walking around the house in cutoffs, a flannel shirt, and a pair of fuzzy knee socks. Did she have any idea how alluring the thrown-together casual ensemble was?
Everything about her was captivating, from her throaty laugh, to her sharp and funny conversation, to her bewitching green eyes and beautiful smile.
And she seemed to be totally unaware of any of it.
It was sheer torture. After a few days it became obvious Hunter wasn’t the only one of the “dwarves” who was harboring a severe crush on Kristal.
Paul followed her around like a puppy dog, always managing to get hungry whenever she was in the kitchen and sitting next to her on the sofa in their home theater whenever they all crashed after a hard day’s work to watch movies or re-runs of The Office.
Hunter noticed his housemates had started dressing better, and someone—he hadn’t pinpointed the guilty party yet—had started wearing cologne.
Anytime Kristal said something remotely funny, all the guys laughed like they were at a stand-up comedy show. When she’d admitted her love of animated films, they’d “confessed” to their own secret Disney favorites. She basically never had to get her own drink refill or carry her own laundry up from the lower level where the washing machine was.
But Kristal didn’t seem to notice the pandering and drooling that got on Hunter’s every last nerve.
She treated all of them with kindness and friendliness. Nothing more. Just like in high school.
And she was a good sport about the Tech House show, playing her role for the cameras so well Hap started musing aloud about her potential as an actress.
“You’ve already got the waiting tables part down,” he joked. “You’re basically ready to move to Hollywood.”
“Sounds good.” She laughed, playing along.
“She doesn’t want to be an actress,” Hunter harrumphed. “She’s a photographer.”
“What’s crawled into your ear and died?” Aiden asked. “We’re going to have to re-distribute the nicknames around here cause you’re out-grumping Reid these days.”
He leaned back in his chair to put himself in Reid’s sightline. “Hey, you wanna be the new Doc?”
Without looking up from his computer, Reid said, “I want to move out of this madhouse altogether. This show better not get picked up by the network. I’d rather die than have Mara see me on it.”
He pointed a warning finger at Hap, who laughed. “Well, that is kind of the idea. But if it does get picked up, they’ll shoot it with a new cast.”
“They’ll never find a cast of bigger idiots than these,” Reid muttered.
Josh laughed. “Nah. He’s still Grumpy.”
Unable to get into the jovial mood of the others, Hunter headed for the door. “I’m going for a run.”
He put in his earbuds and hit the street, headed for Ocean Avenue where he could clear his head and wear himself out physically.
Though he wore lined athletic pants and layered shirts, it was bracing near the water. The icy air and ocean spray hit his face like a hard slap.
Good. He needed a slap.
This whole crazy situation was his fault. Reid was right—the filming was disruptive to their work. They’d gotten less done in the past week than they had since they’d started this venture. The whole idea behind living and working together was to get more done.
Hunter felt bad for luring Kristal there under false pretenses and forcing everyone else to go through the stupid ruse of filming the reality show for no reason. He felt even worse for himself.
She hadn’t magically fallen in love with him, and she wasn’t going to.
Which made it torment to live with her. They were together all the time physically but miles apart emotionally. It was almost worse than not seeing her at all.
He just couldn’t seem to manage to view her as a friend. He’d tried, but it was impossible, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Maybe he should be the one considering moving out instead of Reid.
Returning to the house covered in sweat, Hunter jogged up the stairs and headed straight to the shower, still ruminating on the situation.
His wireless earbuds blasted old-school Stones as he moved on auto-pilot through his room toward the bathroom and stripped his damp shirt and sweatshirt over his head.
He realized his mistake when the garments dropped to the floor just outside the bathroom door.
Beside a small pile of women’s clothes. His heart stopped then resumed beating at a new, much more erratic pace.
Kristal’s clothes. Kristal’s room. Oh crap.
Before he could grab his sweaty clothes and flee, the bathroom door opened, and Kristal stepped out.
Her hair was twisted up in a towel. Another one was wrapped around her torso.
Other than that, she wore nothing but a look of utter shock.
“Oh,” she squeaked, her hand clamping over her chest and her wide-eyed gaze dropping to take in his sweaty, shirtless form.
Obviously, Hunter should have apologized and left immediately, but his body was frozen in shock. He couldn’t stop his eyes from cataloguing the glorious details in front of him.
All that smooth skin.
The flushed cheeks, the outline of Kristal’s feminine curves, her long, bare legs, the adorable little feet with those bright red toenails.
All that combined with the clean scent of her skin and the sounds of her rapid breathing filled Hunter’s senses and tumbled his brains.
Nope. Just-friends would not be happening today. Or ever.
Finally managing to spin away from the too-tempting sight, Hunter blurted, “Sorry,” and fled the room before Kristal could scream, “Get out” and grab a can of mace or something.
He berated himself all the way to his new living quarters.
How could he have been so stupid? He’d done exactly what he’d promised Kristal he’d never do—accidentally run into her coming out of the shower. Now she was going to think he’d done it on purpose.
So much for not making things awkward.
After his own shower, he opened his laptop to look at real estate listings. Their lease on the mansion was up soon anyway. Even if the other guys wanted to stay there, it was high time Hunter found a place of his own.
Naturally
, he’d keep paying his portion of the lease so Kristal could keep this unit as long as she needed, but either way, this living arrangement had to come to an end—the sooner the better.
Until then, the only thing he knew to do was avoid her as much as possible.
If he couldn’t be her friend, he’d just have to be a ghost.
Eleven
Secret Beach
Hunter was acting weird.
Kristal sat at the long dining table with all the guys. While most of them were in a lively mood, chatting and laughing, Hunter was in his own world, brooding and silent throughout lunch, looking down at his phone more than he looked up at the friends surrounding him.
She thought maybe, like Reid, he was weary of the ever-present camera crew. But even later on, after they’d left for the day, he stayed quiet, keeping to himself as he worked on his laptop in the corner of his favorite couch.
It couldn’t be the caught-almost-naked incident. They’d discussed it, laughed uncomfortably at the mishap, and moved past it days ago.
Or at least she’d tried to. The sight of him shirtless, in only a pair of running shorts had been engraved into her mind’s permanent record.
It had to be the stress of work. It was all these guys seemed to think about.
Hunter, being the founder of the company, took a larger load on himself than any of them. He’d been working insane hours the past week.
That worried her. Her father had been obsessed with work, staying at the office late into the night most weekdays and rarely even taking an entire weekend off.
There was no doubt in her mind his driven, workaholic nature had contributed to his stroke and early death.
Getting up from her own chair in the great room, Kristal walked over to where Hunter was working. She lay a hand on his shoulder, and his body tensed instantly.
“Take a walk with me,” she said softly.
He barely looked up. “Can’t. Too much to do.”
Having expected him to say exactly that, she was undeterred. She wrapped both her hands around his forearm and tugged playfully.
“You’ve been working non-stop all day. Have you even looked outside? Online commerce will survive without you for an hour. Come on.”
Kristal leaned back and pulled, succeeding in shifting Hunter’s large body mere inches.
Finally, he looked up at her, his sea-blue eyes colder than she’d ever seen them before.
Whoa. He really was stressed.
“Someone else can walk with you,” Hunter grunted.
“I’ll go,” Paul said, followed by a loud sneeze.
“You probably shouldn’t go out in this cold,” Kristal told him then turned her focus back to Hunter. Her mind scrolled for a suitable lure.
“Besides, Hunter mentioned a secret beach he knows of that I want to check out for my next series of photographs. Toni at the gallery wants some new ones, and she specifically asked for nautical shots.”
She gave Hunter a doe-eyed smile and might have added an extra note of persuasion to her voice. “Come on—it’s nearly the golden hour, and I really need some new shots.”
Heaving a defeated sigh, he closed his laptop and set it to the side. “Fine. I’ll show you where the beach is, then I’ve got to get back. Grab your coat.”
Victory.
Unfortunately, it was a short-lived one. The drive in his car was painfully silent. Workhorse that he was, Hunter must have still been thinking about all the things he needed to do.
Well, she’d force him to lighten up and have fun, if that was what it came to.
Pulling the Bentley down a narrow gravel and shell road, Hunter parked facing the water and got out, coming around to her side to open the door.
“How did you find this place?” Kristal asked as she got out and looked around.
“Jack and I used to ride our bikes all over when we were kids—we had a lot of empty hours to fill,” he explained.
She had a feeling there was more to that story. Hunter always avoided conversations about his childhood.
“We’d check out any interesting trail we found, exploring,” he said. “One day we found this beach. No one else ever seems to come here.”
Kristal grabbed her camera bag from the back seat and followed him down a rocky path to the water. The hidden beach was gorgeous.
Natural and untamed, it featured interesting rock structures and frost-tipped seagrass that protected it from the view of passing drivers or nearby homes.
“Wow. This is amazing.” She clicked off shot after shot, finding fresh inspiration everywhere she turned.
As she worked, Hunter stayed silent. Several times she called him over to share an exquisite angle, to see a particularly intriguing shell, a comical hermit crab waddling across the rocky sand. He gave her murmured responses, remaining stoic, before going back to gazing out at the ocean.
At one point, Kristal aimed the camera lens at him, hoping to capture his profile or at least elicit a response from him. He must have seen her in his peripheral vision because he held out a spread palm, blocking her from getting a shot.
She laughed and took a picture anyway, then zoomed in and clicked off several shots of his hand as she moved around him, pretending to be a fashion photographer and faking a bad English accent.
“Oh yeah. That’s it, baby. Give it to me. Show me that palm. Okay, now the knuckles. Oh yeah. Beautiful. Gorgeous.”
That managed to elicit a chuckle from him. “What’s got you in such a good mood?” he asked with a reluctant grin.
“What’s got you in such a bad one? You’ve been in a funk for the past week.”
“Nah. Just have a lot on my mind. This is nice though. I love the beach in winter.”
“Really?”
Hunter nodded. “This is my favorite time of year. It’s so quiet and peaceful, and the spare beauty of it just sort of speaks to me.” He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “I’ve always been a minimalist, I guess.”
For a moment Kristal just stood with her jaw hanging open and her heart pounding. Who was this guy? And how could he be so perfect? It was like he’d been designed in the Made for Kristal Factory.
“What?” he asked when he noticed her staring.
“I can’t believe you just said that. It’s like you just read my mind and spoke my thoughts out loud. No one ever agrees with me about the winters here. They complain they’re too long, too cold. They run off and spend a few months in Florida or California.”
She turned her eyes toward the sinking sun and its purple-pink reflection glowing on the gently swaying ocean. “But I’d never want to leave here in winter. It’s always been my favorite season. It’s so beautiful. It’s like magic.”
Kristal laughed, suddenly self-conscious about her effusive language.
“I always thought it was just me, that I must be a little crazy.”
Hunter waited a long moment before saying, “It’s not just you.”
Twelve
Sponging Off the Chipp Charity Fund
And Hunter was definitely a little crazy. Or a lot.
As Kristal had gazed out at the water and talked about her love of Newport winters and their indescribable beauty, he’d moved closer to her, drawn in by hers.
She was magic, and he was a mere mortal, captured in her spell, apparently for life.
It didn’t matter that she saw him as only a friend. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to avoid her, tried to pretend indifference. He was absolutely mesmerized by her, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.
How pathetic.
No doubt Hunter should have been taking advantage of all the women throwing themselves at him and dated someone—anyone—to help him move on from his obsession with this woman.
But he hadn’t. Not once since Kristal had moved in. Other women bored him. He just couldn’t get interested in anyone who didn’t look like her, sound like her, laugh like her, move like her.
Looking down at her upturned, expectant
face, which was exquisitely lit by the sunset, he was vaguely aware he was probably supposed to respond to something she’d said.
But the only words he could come up with were You’re beautiful, and the sole thought in his mind was how much he wanted to kiss her.
What would she do if he tried? Push him away? Slap him?
Or worse… laugh it off?
Feeling like his feet were made of lead, Hunter commanded himself to turn away from her and started walking to the car.
“I’ve gotta get back,” he called back over his shoulder. “The good light’s almost gone, isn’t it? Or if you want to stay a while longer, I’ll leave you the car and just run back to the house.”
Once he’d said it, Hunter fervently hoped she’d take him up on that offer. He was filled with a charging energy he had no outlet for. A run would do him good.
But of course he wasn’t that lucky. Behind him he heard the sounds of Kristal scrambling to gather her gear.
“No. I got a lot of good shots,” she said. “We can go back together.”
If the ride there had been quiet, the drive home was silent as a tomb. Hunter was aware of every shift in Kristal’s posture, the sound of her breathing, the soft scent of her body lotion wafting across his nose as the car’s heating vents kicked in.
What was she thinking over there? He wished for just a few minutes he could read her mind, find out what had been going through it as they’d stood there on the beach, facing each other only inches apart.
He’d used up every last bit of his reserves to keep himself from pulling her into his arms—and annihilating their friendship and their living arrangement with his lack of self-control.
What a mess he was. Apparently wallowing in unrequited love all throughout high school hadn’t been enough for him. He’d had to go and ruin his adult life as well.
He couldn’t take much more. Something would have to change soon.
Back at the mansion, Hunter parked in the driveway. He had a powerful urge to leap from the car and run away from her. But instead he compelled himself to act like a sane person and go around to the passenger side to open Kristal’s door.
