Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .txt) 📕

“Oh, come on, love. Don’t do that.” He sat next to her and stroked a lock of hair away from her wet cheek. “Don’t cry.”

Nina jerked away. His touch hadn’t startled her, but his words had. Was she crying? Julian recoiled from her in one smooth ripple of muscle. She caught him by the hand before he got away. “It’s okay. You startled me, that’s all.”

He nodded but stayed quiet. She gave his hand a little squeeze. “Thanks for rescuing me and…stuff.”

God knew she owed him a debt of gratitude for all the “stuff” she was too embarrassed to mention now.

He shrugged. “Anyone would have done it.”

“No one else did. Just you,” Nina said. “So, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” His face remained impassive, but she caught a glint in his eyes. The room went warm. Nina fought the impulse to shed the plush robe as images of him half-naked on the coast of Italy flooded her mind. She blinked the images away as he went to sit at the far end of the bed, as far from her as he could manage without falling to the ground.

“Listen, Julian, I have something to say, and it’s important.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“You’re in good company,” he said. “The queue of women who don’t want to have sex with me goes around the block.”

“Okay, then. I’ll get in line.”

“And take a number,” he added. “I like to keep things orderly.”

JL Knight was self-deprecating and funny. Why hadn’t any of this gotten into the Vanities article?

“All this is to say, we can share this bed,” Nina said. “It’s as large as a continent. There’s room enough for the both of us.”

“We could build a wall, line pillows from top to bottom?” he suggested.

She nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard walls are super effective.”

And they laughed like kids until room service arrived with the food. Julian prepared her tea and set up a tray with her fries—the only effective cure for drunkenness. Nina’s headache was dissipating. How could she feel bad when she was receiving such excellent care? Her eyes drifted up to the angels floating above. She’d drowned, died and gone to heaven. That was the only explanation that made sense.

Julian dragged a wingback chair over to the bed and settled in to eat his burger. Between greedy bites, he explained that he’d been raised vegetarian. He only ate meat on occasion.

“What’s your deal?” she asked. “Are you here to film a movie?”

“That’s classified information, Nina Taylor.”

“You don’t trust me,” she said. “Even now. After everything we’ve been through. I trust you with my life.”

“That’s because you’ve seen me in action,” he said. “You know what I can do.”

He had a point. “Here’s the thing—I don’t have the energy to keep up this tit for tat. I trust you…enough. Could we just be friends now?”

“My friendship is a complicated thing.” He picked up his phone, scrolled for a bit and handed it to her. “I’ll show you what I mean.”

Someone by the handle @TheAimlessDayTripper had posted a photo of her and Julian standing on the balcony, facing each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. Caption: Kiss Already! The post had 5,470 likes.

She returned his phone. “That’s not so bad.”

He tapped the screen and showed her a video of him lifting her out of the pool, water pouring off his back. Her face was buried in his chest, and for that she was grateful. Caption: #RescueMeJLK

Nina passed him the phone with a nervous laugh. She couldn’t look at the photos or video without cringing. There was something about them, something indefinable. Everyone was picking up on it.

Julian fell back into the chair and read her a tweet. “‘JLK sliced through the crowd, dived into the pool and emerged the hero cradling the drowning woman in his arms. #RescueMeJLK.’”

Nina repeated the hashtag. “Like from that time you saved the cat!”

He looked up at her from the screen, brows drawn in confusion. “What cat?”

Nina stuffed her mouth with fries. She couldn’t answer that question without admitting that she’d googled him.

“I didn’t rescue any cat,” he said. “Does that even sound like me?”

“How would I know?” She reminded him, again, that they’d just met.

“You keep reaching for that tired excuse.”

“Anyway. There’s a picture of you returning some little girl’s cat.”

“Wasabi? That old goat didn’t need saving.”

He sounded genuinely offended on the cat’s behalf. Nina grabbed her phone off the bedside table and searched the hashtag. The video had been shared thousands of times. Someone posted a screenshot with the caption: She’s all long brown legs and dripping hair. I see you, girl!

Nina’s cheeks were burning when she tossed her phone onto the mattress beside her. Great! She was a New York Times most notable author and a bona fide damsel in distress. Fun times!

He got up and loaded their plates onto the room service tray table. Nina scooted out of bed and took her case of toiletries into the bathroom.

“Hey, Nina,” he called after her.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to be the best friend you ever had.”

Nina shut bathroom door with a flourish. Cute, clever and overconfident—not at all her type.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Julian had hoped to keep a simple routine until things picked up. He planned on staying close to the hotel and out of the spotlight. He intended to fill his days with early workouts, late swims, light meals and hard liquor. But here was Nina, attention-grabbing Nina—a lightning rod of a woman—sleeping on the other side of a pillow partition, her face soft, her long, brown fingers clutching the blanket and strands of black hair stuck to her cheek.

Typically, he was the guy who slipped out of a woman’s bed before dawn, so waking up next to Nina felt intimate. The kind of thing you did with a girlfriend. Not that this was a hookup—far from it. She’d made her position clear. There’d been no funny business. Instead, they stayed up swapping funny stories and laughing in the dark as fireworks burst over the mansion and cast a