love them very much.”
“Plus, you’re clinging to a completely unfounded idea that I’ll grow tired of you and have you banished from Montedoro in shame.”
She groaned. “Okay, it really sounds silly when you put it that way.”
“Good. Because it is silly. I’ve given you my word that it’s never going to happen. And I never break my word.” He was frowning again, holding her gaze as though he could look right through her eyes into her mind. “There’s more, isn’t there? Something deeper, something you haven’t told me yet. Something to do with those ‘difficulties’ you had that you wouldn’t explain to me.”
Uh-uh. No. Not going there. Never going there. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
It was long in the past. She’d survived and moved on, and she didn’t want to get into it with him now—or ever. She lifted her chin to a defiant angle and kept her mouth firmly shut.
Without warning, he stood. She gasped and stared up at him, a breathless weakness stealing through her at the sheer masculine beauty of him. And then he held down his hand to her. “Take it,” he said with such command and composure that it never occurred to her to do anything else.
She put her fingers in his. A dart of hungry fire flew up her arm, across her chest and downward, straight into the secret core of her. She should tell him to let go. But she didn’t. She only rose on shaky feet to stand with him and then stared up at him dazedly as hot, sweet memories of New Year’s Eve flashed through her brain.
He said gruffly, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting your mother and father to be proud of you. It gets dangerous only when you let your need for their approval run your life.”
She managed to muster a little attitude. “Do you have any idea how patronizing you sound?”
He only smiled. “Hit a nerve, did I? Also, you should know that very few authors can write a decent book before the age of thirty. Good writing requires life experience.”
“Do you think you’re reassuring me? Because you’re not.”
“I’m praising you. You’ve written five books and you’re not thirty yet. One is okay, two are quite good and the most recent two are amazing.”
“Five and a half books.” She was currently stuck in the middle of number six. “And how do you know how good they all are? You’ve only read the last two.” He’d actually offered to read them. And she’d been grateful for his helpful ideas on how to make them better. That was before New Year’s, of course.
He added, “And you’re published.”
Yes, she was. In ebook. Just that past December, as a Christmas present to herself, she’d self-published the three women’s fiction novels she’d written before she moved to Montedoro. So far, unfortunately, her e-book sales gave a whole new meaning to the word unimpressive. She was holding off on self-pubbing the new trilogy, hoping to sell them as a package to a traditional publisher.
And suddenly she got what he was hinting at. “You downloaded the three books I e-pubbed, didn’t you?”
One big shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “Isn’t that what you put them on sale for—so that people will buy them?”
Her heart kind of melted about then. How could she help but melt? He not only made her want to rip off her clothes and climb him like a tree, but he was a very good man. He was constantly finding new ways to show her that he really did care about her and the things that mattered to her. It wasn’t his fault that she had trouble trusting her own emotions.
Her throat burned with all the difficult stuff she didn’t know how to tell him. “Max, I...” She had no idea where to go from there.
And then it didn’t matter what she might have said. He wiped her mind free of all thought by the simple act of lifting her chin lightly with his free hand and lowering his lips to hers.
Chapter Three
Max knew he was out of line to kiss her.
He’d made a bargain with her to keep his hands to himself, and yet here he was with one hand tipping up her soft chin and the other wrapped firmly around her trembling fingers. It was not playing fair.
Too bad. He wanted to kiss her, and at the moment she was going to let him do it.
So he did. Lightly, gently, so as not to startle her or have her jerking away, he settled his mouth on hers.
Pleasure stole through him. Warm velvet, those lips of hers. They trembled like her hand. He made no attempt to deepen the kiss, only drew in the haunting scent of her perfume: gardenias, vanilla and a hint of oranges all tangled up with that special, indefinable something that belonged only to her skin.
Lani. Yolanda Ynez. Her name in his mind like a promise. Her warmth and softness so close, calling to him, making him burn as he hadn’t burned in years.
Making him feel as he’d never thought to feel again.
She made things difficult when they didn’t have to be.
And yet, there was, simply, something about her. Some combination of mind and spirit, heart and scent and skin and bone that worked for him, that spoke to him. There was something in the core of her that called to him. Something within her that recognized him in a way he’d despaired long ago of ever being known.
He’d been asleep for almost four years, walking through his life like a ghost of himself, a dutiful creature, half-alive.
No more. Now his eyes were open, his mind and body one, whole, fully engaged.
Whatever it took, whatever he had to do to keep feeling this way, he would do it. He refused to go back to being half-alive again.
“Max.” She breathed his name against his mouth.
He wanted to continue kissing her for the next century or two. But she wasn’t ready for a century of kisses. Not yet. He lifted his head. “Not giving up on you,” he vowed.
For once, she didn’t argue, only stepped away and snatched up her laptop. He got his tablet and ushered her ahead of him out the door.
* * *
“Nicholas!” Gerta Bauer called sharply as the eight-year-old aimed his N-Strike Elite Retaliator Blaster Nerf gun at the back of his unsuspecting sister’s head.
Nick sent his nanny a rebellious glance. Gerta narrowed her eyes at him and stared him down. Nick glared some more, but he did turn the toy gun away from Connie’s head. He shot the trunk of a rubber tree instead, letting out a “Hoo-rah!” of triumph as the soft dart hit the target, wiggled in place for a moment and then dropped to the ground.
Connie, totally unaware she’d almost been Nerfed, continued carefully combing the long, straight black-and-white hair of her Frankie Stein doll. Meanwhile, Nick grabbed the fallen dart and forged off into a clump of bushes in search of new prey.
Trev, armed with his Supergalactic Laser Light Blaster, charged after him. “Nicky!
