Next to You by Julia Gabriel Read Free Book Online

in a perfect little oh. Yeah, oh. Fucking oh. He hated that look. Ever since he was a child he had been seeing that oh on people’s faces. Oh my. Oh dear. Oh fuck. There were endless variations on it. Someone as beautiful as she was could never in a million years understand what it was like to see oh on the face of every single person you passed. Even when he sold his company, oh was the first thing on every meeting’s agenda. Right, now. Got that out of the way, do we? Can we move onto business now?
    Yeah, he was a little bitter.
    He glared at her bright blue eyes, then stood and stalked off the porch. Oh was always followed by revulsion, a turning of the head, a shift of the eyes to feet, a car parked on the other side of the street, a sudden intense interest in birds shitting on parking meters. Anything but the hideous creature that was Jared Connor. He wasn’t sticking around to see her pretty eyes darken with disgust.

Chapter 6
    “ J ared ! Wait!”
    She broke into a run to keep up with his angry stride. Shit. She hadn’t meant to make him mad. How was she supposed to know?
    “Damn it, will you stop?” she yelled at his back. His muscles were tight and tense beneath his form fitting tee shirt, rippling with every step he took away from her. Damn it all! Why hadn't Cherise told her about his face?
    Jared Connor didn’t stop, didn’t pause, didn’t even slow down. Clearly, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. She followed him right, then left, as he traversed the path through her garden. Her breathing grew heavier. She was so out of shape. No surprise there. She'd spent a substantial chunk of the past year lying in bed, recuperating from one surgery or another.
    “I’m sorry,” she wheezed. Her run tapered off to a jog, then she stopped entirely, out of breath. “I understand, Jared.”
    That stopped him. He turned around, giving her a good full-on view of his face. The right side was rippled with scars from his hairline all the way down to his neck, where the scars disappeared beneath the cotton of his shirt. The left side of his face was less damaged, though, and Phlox's breath caught in her throat as she saw how handsome he'd once been. Hollywood handsome. Chiseled jaw, straight nose, strong cheekbones. His blonde hair was a little shaggy at the moment, but appealingly highlighted from all the time he spent outside in the sun.
    Her eyes dropped to his chest, which looked as hard and ripped as it had felt when he carried her into the house, then to his thighs, the muscles clearly outlined in tension beneath his jeans. He had a perfect body beneath what used to be a perfect face.
    It must be hard, she thought, to go from being so incredibly attractive to … this. She looked him in the eye again. She didn’t find him ugly, though. There was a dignity to him even as he stood there, his posture daring her to run away. And she knew he had a tender, caring side. Warmth rushed through her body as she remembered the touch of his calloused hands on her knees, gently cleaning the skin and taping a bandage on each. How had she not noticed his face then? Had she been that close to going into shock? Obviously, she had.
    They couldn’t just keep standing there, staring at each other. She had to say something. She wanted him to understand that she knew what it was like to have a face like that.
    “I’m sorry, Jared. I didn’t mean to—" Her hand touched her cheek. “I know what it’s—”
    His dark eyes flared with anger and she involuntarily took a step back.
    “No. You don’t. People like you fucking well do not know what it’s like,” he spit out. His narrowed eyes raked over her from head to toe. “Thank you for the muffins, etcetera. Now leave me alone. I just work here.”  
    He turned on his heel and walked away, slamming the cottage door behind him.
    I just work here. Except Phlox and Zee’s employees didn’t “just work” for them. That’s not how they viewed their employees. When