“Ellie Cahill is definitely one to watch!” raves bestselling author Cora Carmack, and this steamy, upbeat modern romance about connecting in all the best ways proves it once again.
Clementine Daly knows she’s the black sheep. Her wealthy, powerful family has watched her very closely since she almost got caught in an embarrassing scandal a few years ago. So when Clementine’s sent on a mission to live up to the Daly name, politely declining isn’t an option. Of course, the last thing she does before boarding the plane is to grab a stranger’s phone by mistake—leaving the hunky journalist with her phone. Soon his sexy voice is on the line, but he doesn’t know her real name, or her famous pedigree—which is just the way Clementine likes it.
Despite all the hassles, Justin Mueller is intrigued to realize that the beautiful brown-eyed girl he met at the airport is suddenly at his fingertips. They agree to exchange phones when they’re both back in town, but after a week of flirty texts and wonderfully intimate conversations, Justin doesn’t want to let her go. The only problem? It turns out that Clemetine has been lying to him about, well, everything. Except for the one thing two people can’t fake, the only thing that matters: The heat between them is for real.
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Robyn was staring at me unapologetically when I took the phone away from my ear. “So? Anything important?”
“I don’t think so.” I shrugged.
“Who is this guy anyway?”
I shrugged again. “I have no idea. His name is Justin.”
“How did he sound though? Old? Young? Did he happen to have an amazing Australian accent?”
I laughed. “Uh, no. He sounded normal, I guess. Not old-old or anything. But not, like, a kid.”
“Did he sound hot?”
“How does a person sound hot?”
“Oh you can tell. Like if he had an amazing Australian accent.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and approached. “What’s he look like?”
“I don’t know!”
“Um, hello. Cam-er-a phone?” She pronounced the word like English was my second language.
My heart skittered as a jumble of reactions hit me simultaneously. Of course there would be pictures of him on the phone! My first, most visceral reaction was horror at the thought of looking at them without his knowledge. After what Zack had done to me, I was sensitive about violating people’s privacy. Still, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t curious about this guy. But was I curious enough to look? Did it even matter what he looked like?
Needle scratch.
God, had he already looked at mine?
My mind raced over the possible images on my phone. Oh hell, there must be dozens of stupid selfies with my friends, and god knows what else . . . What did I not delete, more importantly?
“Clem.” Robyn nudged me. “Don’t get all weird on me. Let’s just look.”
“It doesn’t seem right.”
“You really don’t want to know who has your phone?”
Of course I did, but still . . .
Robyn rolled her eyes and snatched the phone from my hand. Shamefully, I didn’t stop her as she swiped into the menu and cruised for his photo album. She found it and began skimming through pics as quickly as is she were looking for the ace of spades in a deck of cards. “Apparently this guy likes buildings,” she muttered. “How are we even supposed to even know which one is him? Duh, this entire phone is full of randos.”
She held the phone out to me with a look of disappointment, as though she realized how stupid this had been, but suddenly I knew exactly who this phone belonged to. “Oh no way.”
“What?”
I used two fingers to zoom in on one of the people in the group shot she’d left the screen on. “That’s him.”
“Wow, holy crap, Clem!” Robyn seized the phone from my hand and held it close enough to steam the screen with her breath if she’d dared to breathe. “He’s . . . wow. How do you know it’s him?”
“Because I almost fell on top of him at the airport this morning.” I flashed on his dimples as he smiled up at me.
“What?”
I explained quickly about nearly falling into a stranger’s lap when I got up for the bathroom in Chicago. He’d been sitting right by me. He must have had his phone plugged into the same outlet I had. Honor just grabbed his.
Easy. Could have happened to anyone.
But it had happened to me, with the über hottie who I’d babbled incoherently to after nearly breaking his laptop. That was just great.
“Wow, he is really hot.” Robyn handed the phone back to me.
I thumbed quickly through twenty or so more pictures, pausing on any that he was in.
“Oh, damn it,” I whined.
Robyn laughed. “How do you get from this”—she pointed to Justin’s picture—“to damn it?”
I took the phone back and looked at the display again. “Of all the people whose phones I could accidentally steal . . . Yeah, way to make a great impression on the cute guy.”
“Maybe he’s just really photogenic,” Robyn suggested.
“No.” I sighed. “He’s just really that pretty.”
She snickered. “Seriously, why are there no good words to describe a good-looking guy? We’ve got hot, cute, attractive . . .” She leaned on the last to show how inadequate she found it.
“Right?” I agreed. “What am I supposed to say? He’s dashing? Handsome? I mean, really. I feel like an idiot saying most of those.”
“Gorgeous is too much for most guys,” Robyn said. “There’s no male equivalent of pretty, you know?”
We both pondered that for a moment. “You’re right,” I decided.
“Well, whatever it is, he’s it,” Robyn said, pointing at the phone.
I studied the candid photo. Even grainy from low-light conditions and a camera phone, Justin was . . . lovely. Lovely? Oh, ick, Clem, you can do better than that. He wasn’t pretty boy cute like those British band guys; he was more of the ruggedly handsome type, if I had to give him a type. Action-movie hot.
“So are you going to call Mr. Hottie with his message or what?”
“It was just some stupid fundraising call,” I said.
She smirked. “You don’t know. He could be waiting for that call. It could be super important.”
“It’s not.”
“Who cares?” she asked. “Call the hottie!”
“Later,” I said. “I promise.”
I exited the photo album making a silent promise not to look at it again.
Ellie Cahill is a freelance writer and also writes books for young adults under the name Liz Czukas. She lives outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband, son, and the world’s loudest cat.
