Read Online HDU by India Lee - Free Book Online Page B

brief laugh.   “My name’s Amanda.   Nathan.”
    Liam raised his eyebrows, nodding.   “Amanda Nathan,” he repeated, signing
the contract and handing it back.   To
her mortification, his eyes then scanned her body from head to toe.   “I’m pleasantly surprised.”
    Her eyes widened, his words snapping her out of her woozy
state.   “Excuse me?”
    “Uh,” Ian tried to intervene but came up empty.
    “It’s a compliment,” Liam said simply, though his
mischievous eyes suggested that he was enjoying her reaction.   The ice in her veins quickly melted and
turned to fire.
    “Not as ugly as you anticipated?” she asked, trying but
failing to sound unruffled.  
    “Much less ugly than I anticipated,” Liam
answered.   Amanda’s cheeks burned
with fury.   She opened her mouth to
speak, but Ian interrupted her.
    “So, why don’t we get going?” he asked, subtly wrestling
the car keys out of her hand.   “You
guys can continue talking in the car.”   Liam gave Ian a dull look but said nothing more and headed on out.   As they walked behind him, Ian leaned
into Amanda’s ear.   “At least try to make it work,” he hissed.   Jaws clenched, Amanda nodded.   It was business.   There was no sense in taking Liam’s
words personally.   She should have
expected them anyway, considering his vile reputation.
    “Alright,” she started brusquely as they reached her
car.   “We’re going to my house so we
need to get our back story straight, like we really know each other.”
    “Let’s do it,” Liam said, opening the backseat door
of her car and gesturing for her to go inside.   She obliged, surprised when he joined her.  
    “You can sit up front,” she offered.
    “What, you don’t want to sit next to me?” he asked,
feigning hurt.   When she remained
unamused, he relented with a smile.   “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings before, Amanda.”
    “You didn’t hurt my feelings.   I’m not five.”
    He sighed.   “Alright,” he said, removing his cap and running his hands up his face, through
his straight brown hair.   Perhaps
being in her used Saturn Outlook was sobering him, reminding him too that this
was business and certainly not pleasure.   Despite herself, Amanda watched his serious face with awe, matching it to
how he looked in movies.   She had
to actively remind herself to focus.   But it was difficult as he readjusted his position to face her, leaning
his back against the window, his eyes looking straight into hers with earnest observation.   She watched them go from their starting
point to her button nose before trailing down to her lips.   Remembering that they were dry, she wet
them, prompting Liam to laugh and look back up at her.   Amanda blushed furiously.   Ugh,
why did I do that? Liam averted his eyes, as if deciding to give her a
break.
    “So, how long have we been dating?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” Amanda realized.   She actually hadn’t thought much about
their back story besides the fact that they met through Ian, whom she’d decided
was a friend of Liam’s back in New York.   Before Liam could give another one of those sighs, Ian answered with
confidence.
    “Just a month, officially.   But Amanda has always wanted to move to a big city and now
that she’s dating you, Liam, she has an excuse to.   Especially since you guys are in your honeymoon stage.   It’s not like you’ll be moving too fast
either, because you’ll be living separately.”
    “Huh.”   The answer sufficed enough that Liam made a small noise of approval.   Amanda caught Ian’s eyes in the
rearview mirror to give a look of thanks.
    “They’ll ask us where we met exactly,” she said,
finding her voice again.   “We’re
going to say that Ian was vacationing in St. Louis while I was living there
earlier this year.   You visited him
and I met you as a mutual friend.”
    “And there was a spark then,” Ian added.   “But she kept it a secret because