Shopping for a Highlander
I’m a professional chickenblocker.
Except “chicken” is a euphemism.
I get paid to follow a womanizing troglodyte who thinks rules are for other people and that my pants are the next pair he’s getting into.
Dream on.
Bet your first professional job didn’t involve babysitting an extremely hot, muscle-bound Scottish Highlander with an ego the size of a kilt and a libido bigger than his…well…
Chicken.
Keeping football (that’s soccer to us Americans) player Hamish McCormick away from inappropriate scandals while he does product endorsement campaigns is my mission.
No problem.
Until Hamish decides I’m his next scandal.
And maybe more…
Shopping for a Highlander is an enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn romance that opens with a surprise kiss and ends with a happily ever after. This sports comedy in the New York Times-bestselling Shopping for a Billionaire world contains no actual chickens, but it has plenty of locker room scenes, a fake relationship, very real banter, and more. You do not need to have read the previous books in this world, though after you read about Amy and Hamish, you’ll want to. ;)
Narrated by Shane East and Emma Wilder!
1
Amy
I am standing here in my black cap and gown, wearing my master’s hood, as I graduate with my MBA from UMass Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management, photographers snapping pictures like crazy, and Hamish McCormick’s tongue is in my mouth.
I realize this is a problem half the women on the planet would love to have. He’s a world-famous Scottish soccer–sorry, football to everyone except Americans–player, and my sister is married to his cousin, the billionaire.
Given the fact that Hamish is kissing me in front of my date, though, it’s a little awkward.
“Ahem,” said date says, scratching his temple, adjusting his glasses, and using polite, understated throat techniques to get Hamish off me. Subtlety doesn’t work on Hamish, though. This kiss is anything but subtle. Pretty sure you’d need a crowbar to pry him off me.
Or me off him. The distinction between who is kissing whom was lost long ago.
I see my date, Davis, out of the corner of my eye, and I’m about to shove this two-hundred-pound sack of hard muscle and overconfident heat off of me and slap him, but sweet merciful deity, I swear Hamish’s lips have some kind of magic potion on them that renders me spellbound.
No kiss has ever tasted like this.
Except the last kiss from him.
Six months ago, under the mistletoe at my family's Thanksgiving celebration. Right before news broke about Hamish screwing his team owner's daughter, when their sex tape was leaked to the media.
Yeah. That kiss. That kiss tasted like this.
As I try to pull away, Hamish moves along with me, his hands flattening against my shoulder blades, his tongue soft and discreet, caressing me like I’m naked in bed and we have an acre of mattress to explore.
He can round my Cape of Good Hope anytime. He can be the Ponce de León to my virgin territory.
“Hamish!” My mother’s shrill voice cuts through this tormenting fantasy-come-to-life. “How wonderful of you to stop by for Amy’s graduation ceremony!” She's grinning up at him, arms wide in anticipation of a hug.
Then she looks at my date. “Oh, hi, Davis. I didn’t know you’d be here?” The uptick in her voice, turning it into a question, shows that even my mother, who is the embodiment of the word awkward, realizes this is a social mess.
Air. Suddenly, I can breathe again. There is entirely too much air in the world, and I'm sucking all of it in at the same time. A single breath becomes the atmosphere.
“Marie! How's yer leg?” Hamish says, giving Mom a big hug, one she enjoys as her eyes close and she squeezes him with genuine affection. Mom's proud of me, for sure, but it's the human connection at big events that she really enjoys.
She makes a fist and knocks lightly on her thigh. Mom is perfectly coiffed, her hair recently dyed and cut in a stylish fashion, her blonde a little blonder, her new mink eyelash extensions shaving years off her life. Thick eyeliner that was in style maybe five years ago dominates her eyes, and she's gone with peach tones for the day, a gauzy, lightweight shirt over cream pants and sensible flat shoes – very unlike her – are a testimony to her injury.
Mom's had to learn to sacrifice fashion for function, and she doesn't like it.
“Good as new! I hate to hug and run, but Jason's waiting for me in the car. He'll be so sad to have missed you.” Mom gives me a quick embrace. “See you at the party?” she asks me.
“It's my party, Mom!”
“Of course.” And she skitters off, though her gait is a little off.
“So good to see ye again, Amy. Ma congratulations.” Hamish is staring down at me, ginger hair clipped short on the sides and back but longer across his forehead. It hangs in waves so insolent, they deserve a spanking.
Why am I thinking about spankings?
“Amy.” Davis is using his serious voice, the one he uses when he thinks I’m being ridiculous. We’ve only been dating for three weeks, and he already has a Ridiculous Voice.
You know what Davis doesn’t have?
Magic-potion lips.
“Yes? Oh! Right. Davis, this is Hamish. Hamish, meet Davis.”
Hamish reaches for Davis's hand and wrings it like he's working out a muscle spasm in the poor guy’s forearm. I didn't know a shoulder joint could turn in so many directions.
But Davis gamely tries to match Hamish's strength, despite being eight inches shorter, a good forty pounds lighter, and viscerally not wanting to be touched by the man I've complained about during our entire friendship–and now romantic relationship.
“Hi,” he says, eyes going narrow. “The Hamish?”
I get a saucy look and a half grin from the man who just imprinted his taste on me. “Aye.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask. A tingle of annoyance starts in my toes and creeps up, like it has no intention of stopping until it gets to the crown of my head. “I'm–I'm graduating. This is my ceremony. Of all the places in the world where you could turn up, why here? Why now?”
“And why kiss her like that?” Davis's words hold a challenge in them, his thick, dark beard hiding how clenched his jaw is. Horn-rimmed glasses encircle dark brown eyes that crowd each other slightly. He's wearing a graduation gown, like me, with dark, shined dress shoes, men's wingtips that signal he's serious about his business career.
I'm stuck in four-inch heels because Mom insisted.
“Ach. The kiss? That was just a bet.”
“A what?” I gasp.
A short, compact man with the busy air of an overgrown hummingbird appears behind Hamish. Short might be an unfair description, because he's taller than me and about Davis's height, but compared to Hamish, every man is short.
“Saw it,” he says, clapping Hamish on the back. His accent is English, but I can't place it. “Jesus, Hamish, you really can find someone to kiss whenever and wherever you want.” He slips Hamish something, hand to hand. “You win.”