Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4) by Christina Lauren Read Free Book Online Page A

I felt the blood drain frommy face. “Though between you and me, I don’t think the gentleman behind you minds one little bit.”
    I reached behind me and felt nothing but skin, frantically pulling my skirt free from where it had been completely tucked up into itself,
    exposing
    my
    entire
    ass.
    Life Alert? It’s me, Ruby, again .
    I thanked her and stepped out onto the jetway, rolling my carry-on behind me and praying that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Once we were just inside the terminal, I made a show of looking for something in my purse so Niall Stella would walk in front of me and I wouldn’t have to fight the urge to constantly smooth my skirt down over my backside.
    He’s seen your ass.
    Why did you choose to wear a G-string?
    He’s seen your naked ass , Ruby .
    We stood side by side as we waited for our luggage, and honestly I wasn’t sure which of us was more mortified. There was absolutely no way that he didn’t see. I knew he saw. And he knew I knew he saw.
    I stared at the turnstile, waiting for my bag to appear, when I felt him lean closer.
    He smelled like fresh soap and shaving cream, and when he whispered, his breath wasminty. “Ruby? Sorry about the . . . I’m not very good at . . .” He paused and I turned to meet his eyes. We were so close. His brown eyes had flecks of green and yellow in them and I felt my heart claw its way up my throat when he glanced quickly down at my mouth. “I’m not very good at . . . women.”
    My humiliation was replaced with something warmer, and calmer, and infinitely sweeter.

    I’d been in large cities before—San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London—but I was pretty sure they were absolutely nothing like New York.
    Everything was massive, taking up as little ground as necessary while towering overhead. The buildings crowded the sky, leaving only a strip of gray-blue directly above us. And it was loud . I’d never been somewhere with so much honking—not that anyone on the street seemed to notice. The air was a chorus of horns and shouts, and as we made our way from terminal four of JFK to our car, and from our car to the revolving doors of the Parker Meridien, I didn’t see a single person who seemed bothered by the cacophony.
    Niall followed an appropriate distance behind me as we made our way through the lobby—close enough that it was clear we were together, but not together —and we checked into our respective rooms. I was there as Niall’s colleague, not his employee or assistant or . . . even his friend, really, and so I wasn’t given any information aboutwhere his room was or, say, what size bed he had in there. I didn’t even get a formal goodbye; when his phone rang, he did little more than offer me a small, polite wave and disappear down a quiet hallway.
    No doubt I looked like someone had just walked off with my puppy, and so I jumped slightly when the bellman coughed next to me, clearly waiting to show me upstairs.
    Once inside the elevator, the weight of the day hit me like a truck, and it occurred to me that I’d been up since three and caught only a small nap on Niall’s shoulder. A screen embedded into the elevator wall played an old cartoon: Tom nailed Jerry over the head with a hammer, and as they chased each other around a wooden barrel, the elevator climbed to the tenth floor, and I felt my eyes grow heavier and heavier.
    I followed the bellman down the hall and watched as he opened my door. In the center of the room was a platform bed big enough for at least four people, opposite a huge flat-screen television. There was a set of art deco chairs in one corner and a window that spanned the entire far wall with a long desk tucked just beneath it.
    The bed really did look like something out of a dream—crisp sheets and fluffy pillows—and my body sagged with how much I wanted to collapse, face-first right into it. Unfortunately, I’d learned the hard way how much jet lag sucks, and no matter how