She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
And then she fled before he could ask any questions, or God forbid, kiss her again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Warren prowled around his bedroom until one in the morning, far longer than he should have before giving up the idea of sleep. Stalking to his study, he logged on to his PC and pretended he had the capacity to focus on Flying Squirrel, when in reality, every bit of his mind was on the woman he’d married.
She was, hands down, the hottest kisser he’d ever met.
Who could have seen that coming? Not him. And he’d imagined her in every dirty scenario his liberal imagination could spin up. But he’d never expected her to actually give his fantasies a run for their money.
Ms. Straitlaced Suits knew her way around some tongue action. It was killing him that he’d used that as an excuse to take it up about twelve notches, only to be shut down. And he couldn’t quite work out why. She’d been like molten lava in his hands and then poof. Turned into an ice cube instantly. It was almost fascinating how quickly she’d shut herself back behind her reserve, or it would have been if it had happened to someone else.
As it stood, he was the one it had happened to and he was not happy about it. Especially given that he’d seen genuine distress in the depths of her gaze when she backed away from him. There was something going on with her that he was just not getting, and she wasn’t planning to be forthcoming about it, either.
Clearly he was going to have to figure it out on his own.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he did a quick search on Tilda Barrett and found several mentions of her in relation to campaigns she’d done for her former employers, including the one she’d done for Kim Electronics. Huh. There she was, looking much the same in a staid suit, standing next to a man the picture identified as Craig Von, the same ass who had screwed up Tilda’s visa.
Obviously she’d been wearing boring suits since puberty. In his head, she wore red dresses with plunging necklines. After kissing her on the terrace, he was of the opinion that the red dress fit her better. She didn’t seem to be of the same mind, nor did she give the impression she had any intention of showing off her hot kissing skills again—not with him, anyway.
His mood went from bad to worse when he couldn’t find anything online about Tilda that told him who she was. They’d had two stilted personal conversations and one wet dream of a kiss. And all that had done was whet his appetite to get under those suits and see what else Tilda was hiding.
The next morning, he didn’t see Tilda at all. As far as he knew, she’d never left her room. Avoiding him? That was crap. Except, he didn’t own her, and as long as she showed up for work on Monday, he had little call to barge into her room demanding to know what was so horrible about kissing him that she felt compelled to turn herself into a prisoner in his home.
Well, clearly the kissing part was the problem. Oops. Married a man I’m not attracted to and now we’re stuck together until I get my visa.
By midday, he’d started to grow concerned when she still hadn’t emerged. What, she wasn’t going to eat? He tracked down his housekeeper and learned that Tilda had asked to have meals delivered to her room. Mollified that she at least wasn’t going to starve herself on his account, he removed his presence from the house so she could have some peace.
The warehouse staff was not pleased to see him on a Sunday, and without the buffer of Thomas, they got the full brunt of Warren. Usually he visited the distribution center with the chief operating officer because, technically, this part of the business fell under Thomas’s umbrella. His brother genuinely liked the people who worked for him and he did a great job managing the daily ins and outs of the minutiae required to get pick-me-ups into the hands of customers. But Thomas reported to Warren, so the staff also technically reported to him. Much to their chagrin. And Thomas was on vacation.
The warehouse manager, a solid Midwesterner named Bob Page, scurried along behind him as Warren barked out questions. “Have you made the changes to the inventory locator software?”
Page nodded. “Last week.”
The man wasn’t scurrying fast enough; he barely kept pace with Warren as they rounded the corner to the main section of the warehouse where the rows and rows of canned drinks sat waiting to be loaded onto eighteen-wheelers. “Thomas gave you schematics on the new layout of the pallets. Done?”
“Almost.”
“Doesn’t count. By the end of the day.” Surely there was something else he could tear apart. “How are contract negotiations going with Chuahan?”