The Way You Look Tonight - Bella Andre Page 0,1

in the span of five minutes. It was only ten a.m. He had seven more hours of this to look forward to.

She stood up and smoothed out her silk dress, spattered lightly with teardrops. "I can’t thank you enough for your help, Mr. Sullivan."

He wished she hadn’t had anything to thank him for as he shook her hand. "Good luck with everything."

"My soon-to-be ex-husband is the one who’s going to be needing luck on his side," she assured him, before adding, "And I’ll be sure to recommend you to my girlfriends." Cynicism now overshadowed her youthful beauty. "I’m sure most of them will be needing your services, too." She was halfway to his door when she turned back to him. "Do you know what hurts most of all? Even more than knowing that he was sleeping with other women? Even more than being lied to?"

Fortunately, Rafe knew it was a rhetorical question, so he simply waited for her to continue.

"He obviously didn’t think I’d have the smarts or the nerve to find out what he was doing. If he wanted so badly to end our marriage, if he knew he didn’t love me anymore, he should have been brave enough to just man up and tell me to my face." Her eyes narrowed. "But he didn’t even have enough respect for me to do that."

As soon as she left his office, Rafe sank back on his leather couch and ran a hand over his face. That was how his sister, Mia, found him.

"I swear," she said, "the best-looking babes in the world come out of your office, and they’ve always got the most gorgeous and expensive shoes on, too. Another rich guy screwing around on his trophy, huh?"

Rafe didn’t bother to open his eyes. Or to acknowledge the question Mia already knew the answer to. Instead, he said, "If you’re here to ask if you can take my Ducati for a ride, the answer is and always will be no." Lord only knew what his impulsive sister would do to his motorcycle if he let her have the keys, even for fifteen minutes. Besides, if she hurt herself by driving too fast or too wildly, his parents would kill him.

"Well, you certainly need some cheering up today, don’t you?" He could hear her grinning even without looking at her. "Lucky for you, that’s why I’m here."

Finally, he opened one eye. "Whatever you’ve got up your sleeve today, I’m not up for it. Try me again in six months."

"Trust me, this is going to make everything better. I promise."

Mia reached into her big red leather bag, something he guessed cost nearly as much as his motorcycle, and pulled out a piece of paper. Though he hadn’t indicated that he was in the market for a summer house, she’d been telling him about various lake properties for the past few months, emailing him pictures and handing him flyers when they were over at their parents’ house for a meal. Still, the constant barrage of lake house listings had gotten him thinking, which he knew was entirely Mia’s intent.

A couple of months away from crying, jilted trophy wives and cheating captains of industry?

Sounded like heaven.

His siblings all loved their work. Mia was so good at selling real estate that she’d opened her own brokerage well before she’d hit her thirties. His brother Adam had never seen a historic house he didn’t want to rehab. Ian, the oldest Seattle Sullivan, made millions while he slept. And their brother Dylan had been sailing since before he could walk, so it made perfect sense that he was building some of the best boats out on the water.

Only Rafe was stuck with a successful business that was draining the life out of him, one day at a time.

"I don’t need another house," Rafe muttered.

He closed his eyes again, settled deeper into his couch, and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. Instead of making an irritated noise, or pushing his feet off the table, Mia let silence fall between them. Frankly, the silence worried him more than anything, given that his sister was not known for her deeply meditative states. Rather, she was the perfect combination of the Tasmanian Devil and a whirling dervish. He was working to muster up the energy to put a stop to whatever she was planning, when something sharp hit him between the eyes.

"Ow! What the hell, Mia?" There was a paper airplane on his lap, its nose bent from the