British Bachelor - K.K. Allen Page 0,1

wore.

It took all my energy to keep the smile on my face. “Oh, I’m not alone. I just stopped by to get my tea and scone fix before the big night.”

Gwen’s eyes brightened, and she clapped her hands excitedly. “The big night, eh? Oh, do tell. Do you have a date? Is he as handsome as Dean?”

I cringed at the mention of my ex-boyfriend. I dropped him right along with college. He hadn’t understood my need to pursue my dreams of writing, and that was enough for me to let him go. “Well, actually—”

Gwen cut me off, leaning forward as if no one else in the joint could hear her prodding questions and asking, “Is he the one?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“C’mon, dear,” she jumped in again. “What does your gut tell you?”

With every interruption, my frustration grew. Still, I maintained my calm. “It’s all too new to—”

“Have you shagged him yet?”

I heard my mom’s gasp clear across the room. “Gwen!” she scolded. “Hush and leave the poor girl be. Who Chelsea chooses to shag is none of your business.”

Holy hell. My eyes darted around the tearoom to see every single eyeball staring back at me except for the man at the counter who was thumbing through a stack of cash. But just because he wasn’t gawking at me didn’t mean he hadn’t heard the entire exchange. Heat flooded my face as I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, wishing I could crawl beneath the baseboards.

“As a matter of fact.” Anger bubbled inside me as I faced Gwen with a syrupy smile. “We shag all the time. Morning, noon, and night. He’s got a giant willy too. Huge.” I held my hands apart and watched my audience’s eyes bulge from their heads.

For the first time since I’d met Gwen, her poise faltered as she turned a shade that resembled the eggplant she was probably imagining. “That’s good, dear.” Gwen smiled weakly.

I bit back a laugh. “It was nice seeing you ladies again. It’s always a pleasure.” I curtsied, hoping Gwen could read through the gesture to see the “fuck you” clearly written beneath my niceties. Then I turned toward the front counter of the tearoom, where my mom was staring at me with her mouth hanging open.

The customer she’d been helping mumbled his quiet thanks, grabbed his hot tea from the counter, and turned toward the exit—toward me. One look at him and my steps slowed once more.

Dark shades covered his eyes like he’d stepped out of a limo onto a red carpet. He wore a black-and-gray zip-up hoodie over a plain white T-shirt and faded black jeans with large tears at the knees. Ink covered both his arms, which were visible below his pushed-up sleeves.

The man had a presence that made the entire room fade away, forcing my gaze to lock on him. And damn, I was transfixed.

He was heartrendingly gorgeous with just enough scruffy beard covering the lower half of his face that I could still see the sharp angles of his jaw, which sent blood pumping furiously through my veins. His wavy light-brown hair was tossed around his head like he’d forgotten to shower. It was like he knew he didn’t even need to try.

We were a few steps from crossing paths—so close I could breathe in his cool, crisp scent—when he looked at me. At least it felt like he looked at me. His shades were too dark to tell for sure, but the way the corner of his mouth tipped up with just a hint of a smile rattled my insides to my core.

It was unfair. He could see me, but I couldn’t see him. My disappointment was short-lived since, in the next second, he was out of sight—nearly out of mind. If it weren’t for the husky words that slipped from his throat after crossing my path, I would have already been on my way toward forgetting about him completely.

“That’s one lucky willy,” he said in a deep voice from behind me. “Happy shagging, love.”

His arrogance swirled through the air, thickening quickly and steadily, while embarrassment flooded my body and goose bumps rose beneath my skin. I dared a look over my shoulder to watch the strange man exit the tearoom. He carried a nonchalance in his walk. His tone was unmistakably British—the real accent, not the fake one Gwen and her friends liked to attempt.

I made a sound in the back of my throat to demonstrate the disgust I felt for the exchange