“Oh.”
The way she said it made it sound as if she’d just had a revelation.
“Oh?”
“Sometimes I see a different side of you. This morning when you stood up to your father. Yesterday with Suzie. That night in New York...”
“That night in New York?” His casual tone belied his erection hardening once more, so heavy the cloth of his jeans rubbed against his hot skin. “Hmm...not coming to mind. Perhaps you can describe it for me. In lurid detail, please. My mind’s a bit fuzzy.”
“If I did describe it, I imagine you wouldn’t be able to finish our walk,” she said dryly.
“Touché. By the way...” He leaned in, savored the flare of heat in her gaze. “If we ever make love again, it’ll be because you initiated.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I did last night.”
The pert response, delivered with such class, made him grin.
“I want you.” He leaned in closer still. There would be no doubt in her mind that he wanted her. “But I’m not going to jeopardize my future with our child by overstepping.”
As soon as she made that first move, he would take up the reins and show her everything one night of sex and a hot session of foreplay hadn’t afforded them.
“Now that that’s established, back to your fascinating psychological profile of my father.”
She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. Would she choose now to challenge him?
“I just wonder if, deep down, your father responds like that because he’s worried about you. Worried you’ll get caught by some gold digger.”
Nothing like talking about his father to cool his libido. “Not his style.” The cavalier response covered a bone-deep hurt, that of a young boy whose father had no time for him as he traveled the world.
They reached the stone path leading back up to the villa. Electric lanterns lit the walk, casting a romantic glow over the landscape.
“I pulled out the file I’ve been keeping onLa Reina, some of the old ships that inspired her renovation.” He nodded toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, glinting in the light from the setting sun. “I can show them to you.”
“I’d like that. I got a good impression when I toured, but more information is always better.”
Pride straightened his shoulders. He’d shown the plans to plenty of people, some who had appreciated, some who had seen dollar signs and some who had seen nothing but an old ship. Sharing the plans with someone who would not only see the business possibilities but the motivation, the inspiration, made him feel as excited as a child showing off their first school drawing.
They walked across the lawn and up the stairs to the glass doors that led into his office. Calandra stopped in the doorway as he flicked on the lights.
“What?”
She surveyed the room for a moment, narrowed eyes darting back and forth. “Just looking.”
He turned and looked over the cathedral-size room, trying to see it through her eyes. Sleek gold-and-white office furniture sat atop a shiny, black marble floor. A modern white desk was positioned in one corner, the black executive chair facing the bank of windows that looked out over the backyard.
The first time his father had set foot in this office, it had done exactly what it was supposed to do—made him grimace and shift uncomfortably in the chair placed in the middle of the room, directly across from Alejandro’s desk. A trick he’d learned from Adrian’s office in Granada.
But now, as Calandra walked through, her eagle eyes missing nothing, something shifted. Something uncomfortable. She saw the office for what it was. Something he’d picked because it was what people expected, not because it was what he wanted.
Her eyes landed on the one untidy space in the room—the mound of paperwork spread across the desk.
“What’s all this?”
“Research. If the worst should happen, at least I’ll go down fighting. Use the money I have saved up to make a go ofLa Reinaon my own.”
Her gray eyes fixed on him.
“I stand by what I said.”