“What? Where?” Chloe asked, looking around and seeing that Chase was busy shooting pictures a hundred yards away.
“To your right,” Jeremy stage-whispered and she followed his gaze across the field to the very good-looking man who was walking toward them.
“Who’s that?” she whispered back, even though she didn’t know why they were whispering.
“It’s Marcus.” Jeremy said the name reverently.
Oh my. That was Chase’s brother?
There were six of them?
Like Chase, Marcus was ridiculously good looking. Still, while she recognized pure male beauty when she saw it, her heart wasn’t pounding and she wasn’t getting breathless and wanting to touch herself, or anything. Still, there was no denying the powerful allure of the Sullivan men.
“I really need to see a photo of the whole family,” she muttered to herself, not intending for anyone to hear.
Of course, Jeremy heard and saw everything. “Their genes are insane,” was his response. “Their mother used to be a model, back in the day. And their father was probably Cary Grant or something.”
Chloe didn’t say anything more—not now that she knew Jeremy was the worst, and most delicious, kind of gossip—but she was thinking that having six brothers and two sisters this good-looking all in one place must be too much for the eye to behold.
“Just watch. I can’t even speak around him,” Jeremy told her. “I’m going to go to pieces even though I know he’ll never ever play for my team and it doesn’t make any sense for me to be so nervous. I hate how the best ones are all totally, completely hetero.”
As he approached, Chloe decided Marcus looked a little bit older than Chase, and a whole lot more serious. Then again, maybe it was because he had a suit on, whereas her Sullivan was in jeans.
Her Sullivan?
What the heck was wrong with her? Chase wasn’t hers. She was merely hanging out in this perfect world for a little while before heading back to her real life. She couldn’t afford to get attached to anyone or anything here.
“Hey, Marcus.” Jeremy stuttered out another, “Hi!”
Poor Jeremy. He was so nervous, Chloe actually forgot to be nervous herself. She even forgot to put her hand over her cheek to cover the nasty bruise.
She was about to reach out her hand to introduce herself when Jeremy blurted, “This is Chloe. She’s with Chase. He found her last night on the side of the road.”
Chloe shot him a horrified glance. She knew she should have kept her mouth shut with Jeremy about how she and Chase had met.
Clearly mortified by what he’d said, two bright pink spots appeared on his cheeks. “I need to check on things,” he said before running off.
Jeremy wasn’t the only one who was mortified. Willing her composure to come back after that embarrassing introduction, she held out her hand. “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you, Marcus.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Chloe.”
Marcus had a low, slightly rough voice that was undeniably attractive. Only for some reason, it didn’t do anything for her. Well, hardly anything. Heck, she was human, wasn’t she? It wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t completely blind to male beauty. She was more than a little complimented by that quick flash in Marcus’s eyes when he’d first looked at her that told her he thought she was an attractive woman.
“So, you met my brother last night?”
She swallowed, trying not to be defensive. “I did. On the side of a road, just like Jeremy mentioned. My car skidded into a ditch and I was lucky enough that he drove by during the storm.”
“I’m glad he was able to help.”
“And I’m glad to get the chance to meet you because I wanted to thank you for—” She felt terribly awkward as she said, “—for letting me stay the night in your guest house.”
The look on his face told her he had no idea she’d even been there. A beat later, he said, “Any friend of Chase’s is a friend of mine.”
He was very sweet, but she knew what he had to be thinking. It was what any person in his right mind would think upon hearing Chase had picked her up last night and taken her to the guest house. Just the two of them, all alone in the beautiful house, with all those beds…and bathtubs. From Marcus’s standpoint, what reason could there possibly have been for them not to get it on?
“Really, it’s not what you—” But she couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Not without flashing back to that moment in the tub when she was coming and saying Chase’s name and he was there.
So yeah, maybe it was exactly what Marcus thought.
She felt a blush cover her cheeks as she realized there was, quite clearly, nothing she could say about the previous evening without sounding like a total freaking idiot.
Planting a smile on her face, she said instead, “Your winery is beautiful. Just stunning.”
Marcus was clearly pleased with her compliment. “Thanks. How about I give you a tour?”
No question about it, their mother had raised her Sullivan boys well. The only problem, as far as Chloe could see, was that it had also turned them into lady killers, one and all.
How could a woman possibly resist those faces? Those bodies? Especially when they came with manners?
“That’s very nice of you, but I’m sure you have far more important things to take care of.”
“I love showing people around the property. That’s part of the joy of this for me—watching other people take it in.”