managed a smile. “Are you trying to stroke my ego?”
“Did it work?”
“A little, yeah.” His smile turned a bit too sexy. “But stroking something else would work even better.”
She smacked his shoulder, and they both laughed. She suspected they would be tearing off each other’s clothes before the sun went down. A second later she glanced at the gazebo-framed hot tub. “I’ve never done it in one of those.”
“Really?”
“No. Have you?”
“Yes, but I’m not giving you any details. No kiss and tell.”
“That’s fine.” She didn’t want to envision other women at his condo, to create their faces, to hear their names. For now she wanted to pretend that Walker Ashton belonged to her. That he would always be her exclusive lover. Hers and hers alone.
When he gazed into her eyes, her heart jumped, playing leapfrog in her chest.
“Maybe Edward doesn’t even live around here anymore,” Walker said.
“It’s only been three years,” she responded, her voice quavering.
“A lot can happen in that amount of time.” He continued to look in her eyes. “We’ve only known each other for a few weeks.”
Sixteen days, she thought, but who’s counting?
He touched her cheek and her knees went weak. In an ordinary world, they would be little more than strangers. But their world was far from ordinary. They’d become lovers almost instantly. And now she was pretending that he belonged to her, that it was okay to make up stories, to fool her mind.
“Do you miss this city?” he asked. “Do you miss it at all?”
She shook her head, recalling the flavor of the place she’d left behind: cable cars, China Town and the Golden Gate Bridge, the roller-coaster landscape and Victorian houses, the early-morning fog.
Too many memories, she thought. The place where Jade rested in a tiny grave.
“Do you miss the reservation?” she asked him.
“I wasn’t there long enough.” He lowered his hand, skimming the ends of her hair, letting it slip through his fingers.
Already she could feel herself losing him.
Tamra nearly panicked, nearly gasped for the air that refused to fill her lungs. Was she falling in love? Only deeper this time?
Walker wasn’t Edward. He wasn’t the father of her lost child. But she wished he was. She wished they’d made a baby together.
He watched her, much too closely. “You’re upset again.”
“I don’t mean to be.”
“But you are.”
“Just hold me.” She reached for him, and he put his arms around her.
Eyes closed, she nuzzled his neck. He brought her closer, and she inhaled his scent, the aftershave that lingered on his skin.
Had she fallen in love? After only sixteen days? Was she losing her mind? “I can’t think clearly.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She clung to him yet she knew she should let go. “Maybe it’s your fault.”
“Don’t blame me. You wanted to come to San Francisco.”
“To visit Jade.” Not to lose her heart. Not to let Walker strip the layers of her soul.
He rocked her in his arms. “Then we’ll visit her.”
“Not right now,” she heard herself say. She needed time to compose herself, to change the direction of her thoughts. “Let’s do something else.”
“You could come to the office with me.”
She blinked, stepped back. “You’re going to work?”
“I’d like to check in, let my assistant know that I’ll be in town for a few days. Besides, I want you to see Ashton-Lattimer.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.” And maybe, she thought, just maybe, the corporate environment would bring her back to reality.
And keep her from dwelling on love.
Thirty minutes later, Tamra and Walker arrived in the Financial District. Ashton-Lattimer Corporation was located in an eighteen-story structure on California Street.
Once they were inside, Tamra looked around the lobby and noticed the turn-of-the-century architecture. Walker had told her that the building had been constructed in 1906, after the great fire. He seemed fascinated by the history connected to it.
She tried to keep her emotions in check, but on the elevator ride to the top floor, the walls started closing in. They were the only two people in the confined space. He’d changed into a suit and tie, looking like what he was: a tough, charming CEO. Spencer Ash-ton’s favored nephew. She could almost see the older man’s blood flowing through his veins.
Like poison, she thought.
He smiled at her, and a lump caught in her throat. She knew Walker had a tender side. The side he must have hidden from his uncle.
“You okay?” he asked.
She cleared the raspy sound from her voice. “This is an imposing place.”
“I suppose it is. Maybe more so since Spencer died here. He was shot in his office. He was working late and—”
The elevator doors opened and he stopped speaking, letting his words fade into the walls. She wondered if he would ever stop mourning his uncle. If he would accept Spencer for the bastard he was.
The fourteenth floor, where the Ashton-Lattimer executives made their corporate marks on the world, presented a modern decor.
Walker introduced her to a few of the secondary bigwigs, men who treated him with the utmost respect. She wondered if there were any women at the top of the food chain.
Finally he showed her his office—a spacious state-of-the-art domain in shades of gray, with silverframed watercolors, a shiny black desk and floor-to-ceiling windows. Walker was a man rooted to the city.
This wasn’t déjà vu. This wasn’t Edward all over again. Being with Walker in San Francisco created a whole new stream of emotions.
New fears. New challenges.
Letting Edward go had been her salvation, a part of her growth, of who she was destined to become. But losing Walker—
“Come on,” he said, cutting through her thoughts like a machete. “I’ll introduce you to my assistant.”
He
