“Then I guess it’s like a staring contest. We’ll see who blinks first.”
“And you think that would be fun?”
“I think it would be fascinating.” And he did.
He had a will of iron when he wanted it. Not that he necessarily wanted it in this case. But toying with Charlotte was like stomping the accelerator of his Lamborghini. It was always exhilarating to see which would come first, disaster or delirium.
“In that case.” She slipped sideways, dancing away from him, across the kitchen. “I’m betting I can hold out longer than you.”
“You think?”
She snagged his attention with a sultry, sexy look. “I guess we’ll find out. Where’s the next house?”
“Rue du Blanc. Top of the hill.”
It was a modern stone villa with twelve rooms and a pool overlooking an olive grove. Charlotte liked it. So did Alec. The kitchen was clean and modern, and there were plenty of bedrooms and enough baths for an entourage.
Their final stop was a full-on castle, with bleached stones, hewn ceiling beams, a formal dining room and seven bedrooms with king-size beds. A gilded fountain dominated the driveway turnaround, while acres of emerald lawn stretched out front. The furniture was French provincial, with many valuable antiques dotting the impressively large rooms. Out back, there was a swimming pool and a meticulously maintained garden maze that was a work of art.
“I hope they’re not a party crowd,” Alec observed as they moved from the patio back into the formal dining room. Too many highballs, and somebody was going to get hopelessly lost in that maze.
“Okay, now I envy your money,” said Charlotte, making her way back to the grand entrance hall with its octagonal windows, antique rugs and tapestry. “I’d love to pick up something like this on a whim.”
“You like it that much?” asked Alec.
She nodded. “I’d buy it.”
“The kitchen’s a little small.”
“I’d renovate.”
He chuckled. “You’d actually knock out a stone wall?”
She flung open the double doors to the great room. “It’s my fantasy,” she pointed out, walking through the furniture groupings, past oil portraits and a massive, rolltop desk. “I guess I can knock out whatever I want.”
At the far end of the great room, there was a balcony overlooking a duck pond. Charlotte wandered into the sunshine and leaned on the wide rail. “If I lived here, I could name the ducks.”
“You could,” he agreed, moving next to her. “Though I’m not sure how you’d tell them apart.”
“I’d buy a dog. Put up a swing for the kids.”
“Kids?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t use all seven bedrooms myself.” A wistful expression came over her face as she gazed into the distance, obviously imagining a pictureperfect family.
“So, what’s with you and Jack?” Alec ventured, reminded of her real family.
She kept her eyes straight forward. “What do you mean?”
Alec had seen the expression on her face. He’d watched their body language, and the distance they kept between them. “It seemed like there was some kind of tension—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you angry with him?” It seemed like the most logical explanation.
“Why would I be angry with him?”
“I don’t know. It was—”
“I barely know him.”
Alec took in her profile for a moment. “He’s your brother.”
“We didn’t grow up together.”
Alec had heard as much from Raine. “What happened?”
She brushed a speck of sand off the concrete rail, then scratched her thumbnail over a flaw. “When I was four, my mother died. Jack stayed with the Hudson grandparents, and I went with the Cassettes.”
Alec found his heart going out to her. His parents had died when he was in his twenties, and that was enough of a blow. And he’d always had Raine. Charlotte, on the other hand, had her entire family ripped away when she was little more than a baby. No wonder she fantasized about home and hearth.
“Did you ever ask why?”
“Ask Jack?”
“Your father.”
She shook her head. “David Hudson and I don’t talk much.”
Alec stilled her small hand with his own. “I guess not.”
She shrugged her slim, bare shoulders. “It was hardly Oliver Twist.”
“But it hurt you just the same.”
She smoothed back her hair, raking spread fingers through the tangles. “It’s just…sometimes…” But then she shook her head.
“Tell me,” he prompted.
She turned to look at him. “Like you and Raine. You hug, you tease.” She moved her hands in a gesture of confusion.
“That comes from years of learning exactly how to push each other’s buttons.”
“That might be how you tease her, but that’s not why you hug her.”
Suddenly, Charlotte looked so vulnerable and confused and alone on the windswept balcony that he couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her against him, cradling her head against his shoulder and smoothing her tousled hair.
“Be patient,” he advised. “Relationships are complicated.”
“I’m twenty-five,” said Charlotte. “And we live on different continents.”
“Some are more complicated than others.”
Her body trembled against his.
“Hey,” he soothed, rubbing his palm across her back, trying desperately to keep his perspective. But she was soft and sexy in his arms. She smelled like a spring garden, and the vivid memory of her taste was pounding inside his head.
She drew back, and he was surprised to see she was laughing instead of crying.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“I guess Jack and I would be on the complicated end of the spectrum.”
Alec gazed into her bright eyes, her flushed cheeks,
