The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) by Suzanne Halliday Read Free Book Online

and exhilarating at the same time.
    “My folks will tell you I was a design prodigy. Something about blowing their minds with an Etch-a-Sketch.”
    She chuckled and sipped at her champagne.
    “I’m the obnoxious guy who scribbles stuff on napkins and paper bags. Once I got my hands on a computer, well. . . pfft. ”
    “Okay.”
    He felt his brow rise without any conscious effort on his part. Beautiful, funny, and damn smart too. No way was she easily pushed off topic.
    Ryan shrugged. After a long sip of the chilled bubbly, he met her curious gaze. “People clutching a MacBook with awesome design skills are a dime a half dozen. The market was saturated with guys like me. Around the time I was coming to the conclusion that my life was going to be about scraping by and humping for clients, providence tapped me on the shoulder.”
    This time, she was raising her brows.
    “In my senior year in college, I got sucked into doing one of those cheesy calendars. College hunks or something like that. Later, whenever I needed a quick infusion of survival funds, I’d take some modeling jobs. One thing led to another and before long, I was standing next to the Tivoli fountain in an Armani tux having my picture taken.”
    “I knew it!” Samantha’s laugh was contained so only the two of them were involved.
    He smiled. It was the first time he smiled thinking about that time of his life in god only knows how long.
    Samantha’s laughter grew infectious, and she moved close enough to grab his wrist. “Please tell me there’s an underwear ad out there somewhere starring you.”
    What? Shocked, he exploded with laughter.
    “What’s so damn funny?” Kyle asked now that Ryan had drawn his attention.
    “She wants to know if there’s an underwear ad.”
    The table erupted in rollicking laughter as a series of awful, ribald jokes around the teeny tiny designer’s underwear in an ad campaign he’d starred in got tossed around.
    “Wait, wait!” Andi yelped after blowing her nose and wiping away tears of laughter. “Here,” she said as she whipped her cell phone out of thin air. “I keep it in my pictures.”
    Kyle groaned at her admission and slapped a hand over his eyes.
    Just as Ryan drawled, “Seriously?” she held up her phone and shoved it in Samantha’s face.
    Her reaction was as funny as the jokes. Barely managing not to spew champagne like a fire breather, she very nearly choked on her drink. Her eyes widened and bugged out as she squinted at the tiny picture on the screen.
    Ordinarily, by this time, when he was under intense scrutiny for something he’d done as a young twenty-something, Ryan would be chafing as irritation wracked him. He wasn’t embarrassed by the photographic endorsement of his manly attributes. Not at all.
    What ground his gears was the pantomime of ogling that broke out and how a single photo automatically separated people into two distinct groups. Guys who basically wanted to punch his lights out and women who wanted to fuck him.
    All those feelings were nowhere to be found at the moment because he was completely wrapped up in what the expression being on pins and needles really meant.
    Kyle loaded up his drawled comment with an assload of sarcasm. “Easy, girls. Age deflates a balloon, if you catch my drift.”
    Ryan shot him a fuck you death glare, downed the rest of his champagne, and went back to waiting for Samantha to do what every woman did.
    After a good long look at Andi’s phone, Samantha sat back and carefully placed her champagne flute on the table. She didn’t look at him and kept her face averted, but he could still make out the blush staining her cheeks.
    “I think the cat’s got her tongue.” Andi snickered. Fanning herself with diva-ish flair, she went a step further. “Either that or she’s burning up.”
    Samantha shot out of her seat and stood up so fast, he moved back to give her room.
    “Andrea,” she barked like a drill sergeant. “Ladies’ room. Now.” A