Hollywood Tiger: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (Hollywood Shifters Book 3) (15 page)

It was his turn to sink abruptly onto the bed next to her. “What?” he said in a voiceless whisper.

“It’s my last secret, the other one I was afraid to confess. I stopped telling anyone, because . . . well, because I spent the first few years of my adult life as the clueless fat girl who was only being courted for her money. Because I’m rich.” And when he didn’t speak, she filled the silence desperately. “
Really
rich. My great-grandmother left me the lion’s share of her money. Though everybody else all thought they deserved it, especially when they flattered her and sucked up to her, even when they were calling her crazy behind her back. See, I always thought she said that about being a pony as a way to see who was humoring her because of, you know, the money. Because even when I was a kid, I could see the way my own mom talked
about
her grandmother, and
to
her. And a lot of the other relatives, too. But Great-Granny and I . . . Dennis, you’re not saying anything.”

Dennis stood up, then sat down again.  “I . . .” He rubbed his hands up his face, and then blinked at her.

She began talking again to fill the silence. “It’s why I never had a job. A real job. But once I found out what I was good at, I studied to get better at it. But I never wanted to be licensed, because then they’d look past Maurek—my dad’s name—and find
her
name, and then there it would be all over again, the fake smiles, the flattery, the cons and come-ons. And so, with that, and my poodle, I never dated more than twice, and when I’d finish a job, I’d take off somewhere interesting. To study dance, or to see art. Or just to meet people who had no idea who I was or how much money I had. I got addicted to travel, so much that I never bought a house. Just leased that apartment in Beverly Hills.”

Dennis turned to her, and the stunned look left his face, and he seemed to see the anxiety in her eyes, because there was his tender smile. And he took her hands. “What’s for dessert?” he asked gently.

“Strawberries and champagne.”

“Sounds delicious. But I have a better idea for this champagne,” he said.

“Which is?”

“It, two flutes, you and me, in this bed. Sans clothes.”

“To celebrate the sloop?”

“To celebrate the rest of our lives, because loving you is going to take an entire lifetime,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Maybe two.”

“Then we’d better get right on it,” she said, pulling the curtains, and shutting the cabin door.

A note from Zoe Chant

Thank you for buying my book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to be emailed when I release my next book, please
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Please write a review of
Hollywood Tiger
. I love hearing what my readers think! It helps me decide what to write next.

Page down to read a special sneak preview of
Hollywood Dragon
.

The cover of
Hollywood Tiger
was designed by Layla.

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Hollywood Dragon

by Zoe Chant

Special Sneak Preview

Jan’s senses sharpened: every sound crystalized, every color intensified. Though Mick wore jeans and Dennis battered cargo pants, JP was elegantly dressed in slacks of slate gray, and an expensive tailored shirt under a light summer blazer. Jan swallowed in a suddenly dry throat, shifting her gaze up to meet his steady black gaze, cool as a volcanic lake, its depth impossible to guess.

I’m drowning
, she thought hazily as her nerves shocked hot then cold. Dimly she heard Shelley saying, “Everybody, please meet my friend Jan Janssen.” Then she turned to Jan, and pointed to each man. “Mr. Volkov, JP, you know Mick of course, and the new guy is Dennis—in case you missed Mick’s bellow.”

Jan wrenched her gaze away from JP, thankful when Mrs. Volkov looked in to say, “If you’ll all come to dining room, everything is ready.”

The two big men shot to their feet, and there was a bottleneck as Mick attempted to gallantly squire Shelley and Dennis maneuvered with his cane. Jan stepped back, nearly colliding with JP. Her hand bumped against the smooth shirt between the open flaps of his coat, her knuckles grazing the hard line of abs below his ribs. Heat shot through her, and she snatched her hand away, pressing it against her side as she fought a flush.

Gratefully she followed Dennis’s broad back as she gulped air to cool her face.

Phew.
What just happened?
Jan thought. Oh, she knew what had happened, but not why. She’d gone all adolescent insta-crush. Even worse, on a guy who apparently owned half the town. A guy so far out of her league that her role as sidekick in Shelley’s romcom seemed to have shifted to comedic relief.

* * *

Nobody had told JP that Jan Janssen was beautiful.

His own voice, fatuous with the arrogance of age twenty-one echoed manically in his ears,
Blondes are a cliché, and I never date clichés.

Of
course
the universe had not finished laughing at him. He stared, the block of ice that had divided him from the world for the last year smashing so suddenly that his nerves felt unsheathed, the air too thin to breathe. Yet he could not look away from her soft, graceful curves arcing down to the generous hips that the Old Masters, so wise, had never tired of painting, the delectable whole dominated by wide blue eyes.

When she fell against him for a brief moment, the sun went nova, emptying his skull like an eggshell as his lungs struggled for breath. He couldn’t move a muscle until she snatched her hand away and turned her back.

It looked like Dennis was going to be gallant and pull out the end chair for her, but he frowned down at his cane, and JP stepped around him and did it first.

Dennis cast a rueful glance at him over Jan’s curly blonde head and mouthed the words,
Sneaky bastard!

JP was going to retort in kind, but Jan cast a quick, shy smile up at him, her cheeks pink, sending another bolt of heat up his spine. “Thanks,” she said in a low voice like pure, molten gold.

JP, veteran of countless high-powered boardroom victories and negotiations with difficult mega-star musicians and singers, couldn’t find a word to say as he took the seat adjacent to hers. His mind had gone completely blank. The mere sound of her voice stirred JP in points south that had been utterly dead for far too long. Totally inappropriate in his old friend’s homely kitchen!

JP marshaled his wits as Baba Marisia passed around the serving dishes, a heavy ceramic edged with colorful Russian folk motifs. He was intensely aware of Jan at the other table openly admiring those dishes.

The company sat quiet as the grandparents said grace in Russian, words that JP did not understand but he had been hearing at this table since he was small. Then they picked up their forks and began to eat.