to tell you how astonishingly attractive you are,” she riposted.
“You know what? Your skin’s like the pearly sheen inside a seashell.” And how he longed to stroke the hollow beneath her cheekbone, its smooth ivory warmth. Fighting to keep his hands at his sides, Slade added, “A mutual admiration society—is that what we are?”
“From the neck up only,” Clea said, deciding the time had come for a solid dose of the truth. “I’m not going near your body.”
He dropped his iron control long enough for his gaze to rake her from head to toe, from her softly shadowed cleavage to the seductive flow of waist, hip and thigh. On her bare feet she was wearing jeweled sandals with impossibly high heels. My God, he thought, I’m done for. “That’s very wise of you,” he said thickly, and looked around the crowded garden. “Given the circumstances.”
“I meant,” she said clearly, “that I’m literally not going near your body.”
“Scared to?”
“Yes.”
His choke of laughter was involuntary. “You’re honest, I’ll say that for you.”
She gave him an enigmatic smile; at least, she hoped it was enigmatic. “Where’s home for you, Slade?”
Tacitly accepting her change of subject, he answered, “Manhattan. And you?”
“Milan.”
“So your accent’s Italian?” he said.
“Not really. I grew up in France and Spain.”
“What brings you here?”
“I was invited.”
An answer that wasn’t an answer. He glanced down at her aqua silk trousers. “How did you get past the dragons at the gate? Belle’s dress code is set in concrete.”
She said demurely, “I arrived earlier in the day and changed in the house.”
“So you know Belle well?”
“I’d never met her before yesterday…nor had I met Maggie Yarrow. Just how rich are you, Slade Carruthers?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“Carruthers…” Her eyes widened. “Not Carruthers Consolidated?”
“The same.”
“You’re doing all that cutting-edge research on environmentally sustainable power sources,” she said with genuine excitement, temporarily forgetting that Slade represented nothing but danger. She asked a penetrating question, Slade answered and for ten minutes they talked animatedly about wind power and solar systems.
Although she was both informed and interested, it was he who brought the conversation back to the personal. “How long are you staying in the area? I could show you the project we’re working on outside Los Angeles.”
“Not long enough for that.”
“I have a house in Florence,” he said.
She smiled at him, her lips a sensual curve. “I spend very little time in Italy.”
He couldn’t invite her for dinner tonight; it was a yearly ritual that he have dinner with Belle after the garden party so she could dissect all the guests and savor the latest gossip. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
“I already have plans,” she said.
“Are you married? Engaged?” Slade said, failing to disguise the urgency in his voice. He had a few inflexible rules as far as women were concerned, one being that he never had an affair with a woman who was already taken.
“No and no,” she said emphatically.
“Divorced?” he hazarded.
“No!”
“Hate men?”
Clea smiled, her teeth even and white, her eyes laughing at him. His head reeled. “I like the company of men very much.”
“Men in the plural.”
She was now openly laughing. “In the plural overall, one at a time in the specific.”
Didn’t he operate the same way with women? So why did he hate her lighthearted response? He said, “I’m not inviting you for dinner tonight because Belle and I have an annual and long-standing date.”
Clea’s lashes flickered. For her own reasons, she didn’t like hearing that Slade Carruthers and Belle were longtime friends. She said calmly, “Then perhaps we aren’t meant to talk further about windmills.”
“Meet me tomorrow morning at Fisherman’s Wharf,” Slade said.
“Why would I do that?”
Because you’re so beautiful I can’t think straight. “So I can buy you a Popsicle.”
“Popsicle?” She stumbled over the word. “What’s that?”
“Fruit-flavored ice on a stick. Cheap date.”
She raised her brows artlessly. “So you’re tight with your money?”
“I don’t think you’d be overly impressed were I to splash it around.”
“How clever of you,” she said slowly, not altogether pleased with his small insight into her character.
“Ten in the morning,” he said. “Pier 39, near the Venetian carousel. No dress code.”
“Beneath your charm—because I do find you charming, and extremely sexy—you’re ruthless, aren’t you?”
“It’s hard to combine raspberry Popsicles with ruthlessness,” he said. Sexy, he thought. Well.
“I—”
“Slade, how are you, buddy?”
Slade said, less than enthusiastically, “Hello there, Keith. Keith Rowe, from Manhattan, a business acquaintance of mine. This is Clea Chardin. From Milan. Where’s Sophie?”
Keith waved his glass of champagne somewhat drunkenly in the air. “Haven’t you heard? The Big D.”
Clea frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Divorce,” Keith declaimed. “Lawyers. Marital assets. Alimony. In the last four months I’ve been royally screwed—marriage always boils down to money in the end, don’t you agree?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Clea said coldly.
Slade glanced at her. She was pale, her eyes guarded. But she’d never divorced, or so she’d told him. He said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Keith.”
“You’re
