Page 3 of Late Harvest

He’d become an astute judge of people over the years—something that had served him well in his film roles and his relationships with others. Everyone ultimately wanted to be seen, to be recognized for what they did well and the value they added. And Bash had realized early on that if you can effectively diagnose that, you can melt the iciest of reserves.

One glance at Amani’s supremely organized desk made it clear this woman took her role seriously. And so that was the way to her heart.

“The past week has been baby Judah-palooza,” he offered with a grin he didn’t have to fake about his infant nephew. “Honor and Brinder have been on cloud nine, but I know from Brinder that having you holding down the fort so admirably has made his transition into parenthood as seamless as possible. My sister echoed that.”

He watched Amani press her lips against the smile that was forming. Yep. Everyone wanted to be authentically recognized for a job well done. That was a universal truth. Just like the Jane Austen truth about a single man in possession of a fortune wanting a wife.

Except that one was most definitely not the case with him. No, it wasn’t a wife he wanted per se. It was the role of a lifetime—one that was currently dangling just out of reach. And, rumor had it, he might need a wife to secure it. Because…it was just that easy to find a wife. One he could trust and respect. Ha.

He wondered if Brinder’s clearly organized assistant had the lowdown on anyone looking for a husband. You know…just temporarily. Until he landed and filmed the part that would blast him out of the suffocating niche he’d been bound to since his mid-twenties.

Focus, Bash. A time and place for everything. Time and place.

He’d worry about his professional crisis later. For now, he needed to escape his temporary abode. It was generous of his sister and brother-in-law to put him up in their guest house by the pool. It gave him much-needed time to catch up with his baby sister, spend some time with his brother-in-law, and snuggle his new nephew. But it seemed that all their friends had small humans, too, each of whom generated a lot of loud and chaotic activity. Especially for a confirmed bachelor accustomed to a more peaceful environment.

Well, unless he was clubbing. Or fucking. But those activities provided an entirely different atmosphere, with an entirely different group of people, and encouraged an entirely different kind of focus for his energetic brain.

Right now? His Funcle brain was depleted and his body ached from playing lawn games probably best relegated to elementary school. He just needed a minute to think without high-pitched shrieks and laughter—as happy a sound as those were—shoving his highly distractible train of thought off the tracks. Yep, kids were great and hilarious and ex-fucking-hausting. And this trip reinforced a long-time personal truth—he just didn’t want any of his own.

Which had led to his most recent breakup. Well, that and the fact that his last girlfriend was vapid, twenty years younger…and not unlike a human velociraptor. She’d also cheated on him. Quite publicly. He considered himself lucky to escape that one unscathed. Well, relatively.

Bash sighed, scrubbing his hand down his face and refocusing his gaze on Brinder’s impressive sentinel.

“And now I get the joy of meeting the illustrious Amani.”

Ah, and there it was. The old interior eye roll. When you were as adept at reading people as he was, you couldn’t miss it.

“Don’t push it, Mr. Wheatley. Spare me your schmoozing, please. I know the truth of it, and you aren’t saying anything I haven’t heard from Dr. Desai himself.”

“Please. Call me Bash.”

A slow smile spread across his face as his blood hummed. Oh, he wasn’t attracted to Amani—mostly because of the rock on her fourth finger that rendered her out of bounds. But it didn’t prevent him from enjoying some spirited verbal sparring. It reminded him of doing improv at his parents’ playhouse in the Cotswolds. He loved good banter.

His smile slid just a bit. His parents had jetted in for a quick visit to meet their grandson. It was their busy rehearsal season for the playhouse, but at seventy-four and sixty-nine, his parents showed no sign of slowing down. They ran their theater company and still took roles in various films, befitting the Hollywood royalty they were.

They also had insatiable granny-slash-grampy lust, and instead of pacifying them, Judah’s arrival was akin to waving Belgium’s finest before a chocoholic. They wanted more. And it had taken them barely ten minutes of alone time with Bash before they’d started grilling him about progeny of his own.

Thankfully, their stay had been short—a much longer visit planned for the fall—and Bash had managed to artfully change the subject whenever the topic of him settling down came up. He’d had decades of practice with that particular script.

The true breaking point, however, had hit that morning, when a group of his sister’s girlfriends had descended on the house. He’d stepped into the kitchen for lunch, taken one look at the cackling coven, and proceeded to exit stage right smoother than silk. Bash had texted Brinder from the car, asking if he had time to meet up for lunch, and Brinder quickly replied that he had half an hour around one.

Bash checked his watch. Twelve forty-five. Before he could lean in to Amani with some witty repartee, the door to Brinder’s office opened and…

…holy shit…

…an angel emerged, pausing in the doorway as the conversation she’d clearly been a part of continued. An angel who was clearly incensed about something, if the increased pace of her breathing and the two spots of color high on her satiny cheekbones were any indication.

“Brinder, I will not allow this kind of behavior on my team. Dr. Lynch may participate in whatever extracurricular activities she chooses. On her time.”

Her voice was like velvet over ice. Disciplined. Crisp. Stern.

Sexy

As

Fuck.

Not even acknowledging his presence, the angel continued, “However, when she is on shift and I page her, I expect her to be speedy, prompt, and ready to do whatever is needed. As it is, addressing this poor performance—for the second time I might add—is not only a personal inconvenience to me, consuming the only free minutes I had today to eat before my next round of cases, it negatively impacts her teammates and patients.”