Marble isn’t the only thing that’s hard at this museum.
His body is as chiseled as Adonis. His lips are as sculpted as David. And his ego is the size of the Guggenheim.
You know the type—wolfish smile and the gravity of a black hole. The kind of man who sucks all the air from the room the second he enters it. My cocky boss thinks this internship was wasted on me, and he doesn’t hesitate to let me know.
But he’s wrong, and I’m going to prove it to him. If I can stay away from his devil lips, that is. Lips that cut me down and kiss me in the same breath, leaving me certain he’s on a mission to ruin my life.
And maybe my heart.
I really enjoyed this title. It's a combination of a workplace, boss and employee romance, an older man/younger woman and an ugly duckling story.
Rin is young, she is an intern, and she is learning that in order to be heard she has to be willing to be visible and make people listen in order to succeed as an intern, and in her bigger goal of becoming part of the museum community. This is her greatest struggle, as she is accustomed to trying to blend in, to look plain, and to look smaller.
Court is older, established, and knows his place in the world and the life he wants to live. He is used to being his own man, although he struggles to make sure the things he does are not shadowed by his relationship to his father, who is also prominent at the museum where they both work.
Rin and Court are at very different places in their lives, and that allows them to really work well together and with one another. It also makes it easy for them, at first, to ignore their attraction to one another, as it is one they both know they should not pursue. As, often in real life and even more often in romance novels, the attraction becomes more than they are able to ignore, and things get steamy "in front of a 600 year old Jesus". Yes, really.
I really liked the characters, except for a couple, but they are dealt with, and the story was mostly believable although at points it was a little predictable.
I enjoyed this overall and I recommend it.
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He smirked and flipped up his sunglasses.
Bastard.
“You’re early,” I clipped.
“I would have had my assistant text you, but she’s currently bedridden.”
“You could have texted me.”
“I didn’t have your number,” he said simply.
“Oh.”
His eyes shifted to look behind me, and I turned to find my friends standing me in a row with my suitcase in front of them, my messenger bag on top, and fake smiles on all their faces, lips together, their judgment about as quiet as a foghorn.
“These your roommates?”
“Yup,” was all I said as I turned and took my suitcase, hugging each of them down the line with promises to text when we landed. And then I turned to Court, rolling my suitcase in front of me like like a riot shield.
I tried to pick it up to carry it over the threshold, but it was heavy, and before I could get far, he’d swept it out of my hands like it was a loaf of bread and not fifty pounds of mascara and shoes.
I waved at my friends, who offered encouraging smiles and hand gestures, and I closed that door, immediately regretting every decision I’d made to bring me to the moment I turned around.
He stood at the door to the backseat, holding it open for me like a gentleman, which I knew he was not. But the look on his face of regret and deference, under the hard shell of his brooding, was almost too much to bear.
So I did the only thing I could.
I ignored him.
I ignored his gorgeous lips as they tilted and the sleek cut of his jaw as I walked past him. I ignored the sight of his long legs as he climbed in next to me and the smell of him that made me want to grab him by the lapels of his jacket and bury my nose in his chest.
The driver took off, and I busied myself in my bag, looking for my headphones and book.
His eyes were on me. I pretended like I didn’t notice.
“You’re not wearing lipstick,” he stated.
Headphones, headphones, headphones. “It’s an international flight, Court. Of course I’m not wearing red lipstick for a ten hour flight.”
A pause. “Rin, I—”
Aha! I popped in my earbuds the second they were in hand.
His lips flattened, his face unamused. Rin, his lips said, but I smiled and shrugged, pointing to my ears.
“Noise canceling,” I said way too loud.
His chest rose and fell with a sigh I couldn’t hear—I’d already turned on music, a playlist we’d built the night before geared toward resisting douchery and unwanted-slash-totally-wanted advances—and he reached into his own bag, a leather affair at his feet, his hand disappearing into the bag and reappearing with a book, which he handed to me.
He watched me with his expression shrouded as I paused, my eyes on the offered book. An image of Penitent Magdalene by Tintoretto filled the cover, and I met his eyes, pulling my earbuds out by the cord.
“I thought you could use this. For your proposal,” he said, giving nothing away. “I…A colleague of mine wrote it, so if you have any questions, I can connect you. If you want.”
I took it from his hand, surprised and disarmed. “Thank you,” was all I said. He opened his mouth as if to speak again, but closed it, and with a nod, he reached back into his bag for his own book. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.
I put my earbuds back in place, trying not to bite my lip, but it found its way between my teeth despite the effort at the sight of him sitting there, dressed like that, reading Margaret Atwood. After giving me a thoughtful gift, a book he knew I would want, one I would need for my dissertation.
Court Lyons made about as much sense to me as a scrambled up Rubik’s Cube.
I leaned against the door as I flipped through his gift, doing my best to sort through the rush of questions and confusion as Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s sang about being cheated by the opposite of love. And I found I knew exactly the feeling.
About the Author
Staci has been a lot of things up to this point in her life -- a graphic designer, an entrepreneur, a seamstress, a clothing and handbag designer, a waitress. Can't forget that. She's also been a mom, with three little girls who are sure to grow up to break a number of hearts. She's been a wife, though she's certainly not the cleanest, or the best cook. She's also super, duper fun at a party, especially if she's been drinking whiskey. From roots in Houston to a seven year stint in Southern California, Staci and her family ended up settling somewhere in between and equally north, in Denver. They are new enough that snow is still magical. When she's not writing, she's reading, sleeping, gaming, or designing graphics.
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