Bewitched by Bella's Brother Read Online Free PDF

for you to say,” Sebastian muttered. “You
    grew up with happy noise. I grew up with silence—
    remember? Happy noise trumps silence, hands down.”
    Bella couldn’t look at him this time because they hit a
    series of curves that made Sebastian glad he wasn’t driving, but he felt her regard anyway.
    “Not when you’re using the happy noise to cover up
    what you really want.”
    What? “Huh?”
    She shook her head. “Never mind. Tell me again what
    kind of tool our GM is?”
    Sebastian chuckled evilly. “Princess, I don’t wear this T-shirt to piss off just anybody.” It was true. Sebastian might have had a flamboyant T-shirt collection that he loved as much as framed Impressionist prints, and he could talk like it was an Olympic sport, but he only went totally swish when it would annoy the hell out someone who looked down on
    him.
    Their general manager was a conservative man in his
    forties, with a wife and two children and a chip on his
    shoulder about working in a bookstore. Sebastian and Bella were not the only ones with master’s degrees, and he wanted to make sure they both knew it. (Sebastian only wished there were some way he could remind the guy he had a PhD
    without looking totally pretentious.)
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    The man took one look at Sebastian’s T-shirt, turned
    purple, and sputtered. Sebastian and Bella met eyes and
    waited to see if he’d tackle the moment head-on, with the
    “not appropriate work attire” speech, or if he’d just cast furtive glances at Sebastian for the rest of the day, to see if he really acted as gay as the T-shirt implied.
    He chose option B, which was a great deal of fun as far
    as Sebastian and Bella were concerned. Every time
    Sebastian smiled, shifted his hips, or laughed, there was Mike Greavy, looking to see if Sebastian was doing that
    because he was gay, or because he was just a funny guy.
    The fifth or sixth time he caught Mike’s eyes on him as he helped a customer, Sebastian blew the guy a flirty little kiss and waved.
    Mike turned red and went back to over-ordering on the
    Nora Roberts titles. Bella saw it, too, and the two of them burst into a fit of giggles that sustained them until lunch. On their way across the plaza to a salad place for lunch, one of the girls whose shift had just ended caught up with them as they walked. Julie was older—probably in her forties, with three children. She worked part time, and from what
    Sebastian could see, she had an absolutely zinging sense of humor.
    “That wasn’t nice,” she said with a mild smirk as they
    adjusted their pace to hers.
    “What wasn’t?” Sebastian asked guilelessly.
    Julie snickered. “I saw that; you know, Mike holds
    grudges. If you’re not careful, you’re going to be working four-hour closing shifts six nights a week.”
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    Bella shook her head no. “Naw—Sebastian’s buddies
    with the regional GM; she got him our job here. Mike’s gotta be nice to us or we’ll tell Rhonda on him.”
    Sebastian was more than buddies. Rhonda had told him
    more than once that if Sebastian so much as looked at her pretty, she’d give him the GM position of his choice and oust whoever was there already.
    Julie tilted her head back and laughed. “Brilliant!
    Excellent—I know you guys aren’t here for long, but do me a favor, would ya? Give him hell! Man, I’ll go to Hot Topic myself; there are T-shirts way more offensive than that.”
    Sebastian and Bella looked at each other. It had been a
    long time since they’d gone shopping together. “We are living rent free,” Bella said, and Sebastian grinned.
    “We’ve got Wednesday off,” he said. And then he
    thought, “We can take Jordan too.”
    Bella looked surprised—but not unhappy. “Asa’d like
    that,” she agreed. Sebastian had learned his lesson, though; he didn’t mention that she sounded like Asa’s opinion of her really mattered.
    Julie looked at