Betting on Julia (A Melville Sisters Novel) (Entangled Covet) Read Online Free PDF

to flop over his forehead. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses—a new addition but one he thought added to the “nice guy” image. He tried a smile. It looked a little forced but would do. He sure as fuck hoped it got easier with practice.
    How long was this going to take?
    Love at first sight would have been good, but obviously, that hadn’t happened. Part of him rose to the challenge. Unfortunately, that particular part had no right rising at this point in the proceedings.
    The women he’d been mixing with lately had been many things but never a challenge, and a strange sense of anticipation awoke inside him as he considered the contest ahead. It made him feel almost guilty; he was doing this because he had to. He wasn’t supposed to be enjoying it.
    He headed back to the door, getting his story straight in his head, as the bell rang. He only knew one person around here and that was Julia. Why would she be at his door, when she’d made it clear yesterday that she didn’t want to see him?
    Time to find out.
    She wore skintight jeans tucked into knee-length boots with four-inch heels, but she was still nearly a foot shorter than him. Her legs were slender and her waist tiny. On top, she wore a pink fluffy sweater, tight over the curves of her breasts, and she had a bottle of red wine clutched in her hand. Her bright blond hair was a riot of curls around her face, and her big blue eyes were staring up at him.
    “I wanted to apologize for not welcoming you better yesterday.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t feeling myself. I’d had an argument with my… friend and a rough night. And you caught me looking less than my best and that always makes me cranky.” She held out the hand with the bottle. Her nails had been short yesterday; today they were long and perfect and pink to match her sweater. “So I brought a bottle to say welcome to the neighborhood.”
    Christ, she looked sexy. With any other woman, he would have dragged her inside and shown her exactly what sort of welcome he was hankering after, but with Julia…
    Should he push his luck? Was he thinking with his dick again? He raked a hand through his hair, took the wine from her, and gestured to the hall behind him. “Why don’t you come in and share it with me. And we can start over.”
    “Thanks. I’d like that.” She blinked up at him, and he couldn’t stop one corner of his mouth from tilting up in response.
    “Excellent news.” He turned to walk down the hall, and she followed.
    Sebastian led her into the living room. He’d rented the place fully furnished and had no clue where anything was yet, so he put the bottle down and opened cabinets and drawers until he found one containing glasses and a corkscrew. He pulled them out and opened the wine.
    “Did you rent the place from Mrs. Penbury?” she asked.
    Had he? He couldn’t remember. He’d offered the woman an exorbitant amount of money to move out for a while, added a hint of a compulsion spell, and she’d obliged. “I’m not sure actually. The company I work for organized the accommodation.”
    “So you don’t come from London?”
    “I come from up north,” he said, handing her a glass of wine. “But I needed to get away fast and the offer of a transfer came up, so I jumped at it.”
    “What do you do, Sebastian?”
    “Call me Bastian.” He shoved his glasses more firmly on his nose. “I’m an accountant.”
    She gave him a bright smile. “That sounds…”
    “Boring?” he supplied. Had he taken the whole “nice” thing too far?
    “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say normal. Normal is good. I like normal.”
    She sounded too emphatic. She must have realized it because she gave a rueful smile and raised her glass. “Welcome to London. I hope you’ll soon feel at home here.”
    He’d actually lived in London on or off for two hundred years. “Off” when it became obvious he wasn’t aging and people became suspicious. When that happened, he’d take