AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, thank you, Jesus,” she breathed the reverent prayer as she smiled up at the man standing above her. She couldn’t quite see his face or expression in the dim light, but knew it had to be Trystan Abbott.
“Not quite.” The curt voice was at odds with what she’d been expecting, and she blinked up at him.
“What?”
“Not quite Jesus,” he elaborated. “Probably the exact opposite.”
Huh?
“Mr. Abbott?” She pushed clumsily to her feet, a little put out when he didn’t offer to help her up. For that matter, had he stepped aside when she’d lost her balance at the door? It had all been quite confusing in the moment, but now that the panic was receding she was almost certain he had. When he could easily have caught her.
He answered her question with two of his own. “Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing here?”
She lifted her head to meet his gaze—able to see much better now that her eyes had adjusted to the gloom—and couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open in shock. She stared, aware that the astonishment on her face had to be insultingly apparent to this hulking man in front of her.
“M-Mr. Abbott?” Her voice trailed off uncertainly and she continued to stare, looking for anything familiar in this man’s face. This couldn’t possibly be the same man who’d been voted Sexiest Man in the Universe three years in a row.
That Trystan Abbott had the kind of classic leading-man good looks that harkened back to an era when Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn had lit up the silver screen with their charisma and incomparable allure.
This guy—looking much older than his thirty-one years—had a long, unkempt beard and shaggy hair just brushing his big, broad shoulders and—while appearing clean enough—neither looked like they’d seen a comb in weeks. His lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line, and his eyes—those familiar, famous molten silver eyes, the only things remotely resembling the man she was here to speak with—were narrowed into an intimidating glare. None of the magnetism and charm Trystan Abbott was famed for was evident in that frosty gaze, and a shudder of unease crept down Iris’s spine. She’d had fond imaginings of witty discourse over cozy cups of coffee or tea. Free-flowing conversation, punctuated by the easy chatter and frequent laughter that had characterized all of the man’s previous interviews.
“Who are you?” he asked again, impatience rippling along the edges of the question.
“M-my name is Iris Hughes.” She fumbled around in her jacket pockets, hoping to magically produce a business card, but all she could find was used, crumpled up tissues, the receipt for the jacket, and a crisp pink South African banknote with a lion and cub printed on one side and a benevolently smiling Nelson Mandela on the other.
She stared blindly down at the useless bounty in her hands, wondering what her next move should be.
Don’t be silly, Iris, she scolded herself. Just tell him why you’re here.
That was easier said than done when one of the most famous men in the world was looming above her with that formidable glower marring his brow and narrowing his eyes. Her tongue and brain both seemed to have deserted her—not awesome when she’d hoped to dazzle him with her professionalism.
“Your, uh, that is, Mr. Quinn said he’d cleared this with you? The interview? I’m here for the interview?” God, why did everything she say have to sound like a nervous question.
The chill that shuddered down her spine had little to do with the weather and everything to do with the added layer of frost that instantly transformed his silvery gaze into ice.
“Fuck off,” he instructed with a snarl. “You’re not welcome here.”
He stepped back and moved to shut the door. Iris panicked and reacted without thinking, wedging her foot in the door before he could close it. She muffled her pained yelp when he slammed the damned heavy door on her trainered foot.
His glower got even darker when he grasped what she’d done and he—thankfully—eased the door back, removing the pressure. It had been an idiotic move and she had no one but herself to blame for her throbbing foot. But she refused to remove it, knowing that he would have no qualms about closing the door in her face.
“I have nowhere to go,” she told him before he could say another word. Her words were rushed, desperate. “You have to let me in.”
“I don’t have to do a goddamned thing. You, on the other hand, need to remove your grubby self from my damned back porch.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t leave. My car has a flat.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“Mr. Abbott… Look, your manager, Hunter Quinn, told me where to find you. It’s my understanding that he’d arranged for me to stay here for the next three weeks. He said you were fine with that.”
The sound torn from his chest could conceivably have been considered a laugh, if Iris hadn’t—like the rest of the world—been very familiar with Trystan Abbott’s infectious chuckle. Instead, the noise he produced sounded menacing and feral and she flinched in reaction.
“I won’t tell you again,” he warned. “Fuck off, or I’ll physically toss you out on your ass.”
His words made her pause as she wondered if this hulking man was capable of physical violence. She took an involuntary step back and he slammed the door in her face, the wood coming within an inch of her nose.
She gasped in outrage and—as she cast a quick glance around at her dark, blustery surroundings—no small amount of fear.
