Sugarbaby Read Online Free PDF Page B

was ready to drop off the brochures and get back to filling those shakers.
    I handed the paperwork to Simmons, and he thanked me, diving into the one about the wine trail right away. When I glanced at the blond before I went on my merry way, I noticed something unexpected—a scar on his neck, the tissue white and tangled, just like those webs we weave. And his eyes . . . lashes. Long, dark lashes that had no business on a blond, much less a guy.
    I found that pulse-pounding gaze on my nametag, and a slow smile came over his lips, bringing out a subtle dimple.
    â€œThanks, Jadyn,” he said, not seeming to mind that he had what I thought must be a burn mark on him, or that he’d just given me a look that nearly made me wilt.
    Thing was, I’d never heard my name come at me like that before—as if he’d picked it off the ground where he’d found it, brushed it off with care, then given it back to me.
    I only nodded and walked away, a whir of sensations pulling at me. There was attraction trying to haul me back to that table like a magnet. There was that vague sense of familiarity, too, but I couldn’t hang on to it. Why did I think I’d seen him before?
    While I filled the shakers, letting the boys chat among themselves, the familiarity kept at me until a name finally emerged from all the confusion.
    Reeves
.
    The name hung on me, hooking me back to the kitchen, where I shoved the salt and pepper where they belonged and reached for my phone in my apron. Jackie eyed me while she prepared carne guisada and chalupas and Juanita kept looking up from an iPad that she used for inventory. Carley had already left to pick up Bret from the county airport, so that left two for the inquisition.
    â€œSo?” asked Juanita.
    â€œAs if you don’t know.”
    â€œMaybe I was watching . . . a little.” Juanita exchanged an amused glance with Jackie.
    â€œI’ve seen him before,” I said. “The blond.”
    â€œThat’s surely a face you don’t forget,” said Jackie.
    I took out my phone and accessed the Internet. I typed in “Reeves” then “Simmons” and “blond,” just for good measure.
    A bunch of links for people on Facebook and Twitter appeared, and I scrolled past them until I got to something that made me stop cold.
    â€œNoah Reeves,” I murmured.
    Everything but the sound of kitchen sizzle and steam had gone quiet.
    I hit the link, and a picture came up of a blond man in a business suit with his head down as he walked a city street. He was surrounded by other suits, including his friend Simmons, who was at his side, seeming as if he would lay anyone out if they came too close to Noah Reeves.
    Now they were sitting in my café’s dining room.
    My breath went shallow as I read on, realizing the exact reason Noah Reeves had seemed so familiar to me. He’d been on the news during the summer, a flash in the cycle of constantly revolving stories that assaulted us day by day, disappearing after another story took its place.
    Noah Reeves, the twenty-six-year-old billionaire who’d dropped out of sight suddenly. No one had known where he’d gone, but they’d hazarded a million guesses as to why he’d disappeared from public—his father had passed away, and some had speculated that Nathaniel Reeves had been so ashamed of losing most of his fortunes to a business rival that he’d given up on life and drank himself to death. Noah’s mother had been hospitalized for “exhaustion,” and his two younger brothers and two uncles were forcing him out of the board of directors for The Reeves Group, a conglomerate that dealt with everything from real estate to tech.
    As I looked through more articles, I saw that there were vicious rumors about Noah Reeves being hospitalized, too, and the family was hiding that fact from the public.
    I put the phone in my pocket very slowly, feeling as