When she bent behind the settee to bundle up the cord, a man’s raised voice per-meated Tristan’s closed study door.
Crouched behind the settee, Ella froze as her heartbeat boomed a warning in her ears.
Move, Ella. This isn’t a position to be caught in.
About to escape to the kitchen, the study door swung open, slamming against the wall.
“Get it through your skull,” Tristan snarled, “I will never agree to your terms.”
“Never’s a very long time,” came that other deep and graveled voice.
“As far as I’m concerned, not long enough.”
Curiosity won out. Ella peered over the couch and saw her boss speaking with a man. His hair was a shade darker than midnight. He was tall, with a commanding presence similar to Tristan’s. The man stood angled toward her. Even at this distance she noticed his eyes, bright yet at the same time seemingly impenetrable…the color of scorched honey. As his gaze narrowed upon Tristan, the amber eyes flashed. But then he slapped his thighs, a gesture of defeat, and stormed away.
Ella slumped as the tension ran from her body. Seconds later, the front door thumped shut. As the echo thundered down the hall, Ella pushed to her feet at the same time Tristan strode past the room and spotted her.
He pulled up, his handsome face dark with fury. She’d never seen him so wild. In fact, other than last week when he’d thought some harm had come to her, Tristan had always kept his emotions well under control.
“Ella,” he growled.
She forced her rubbery lips to work. “Yes, Mr. Barkley?” How easily she slipped back to formalities. Suddenly she didn’t feel as if she knew him.
Tristan’s shoulders came forward, then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would you pour me a drink, please?”
While she beat a path for the crystal decanter on its trolley beside his chess table, Tristan moved into the room and sank into the settee she’d crouched behind. When Ella handed him the drink, he thanked her and knocked back half.
Head back, he concentrated on the ceiling. “You know how you don’t like your brother?”
Drago Scarpini? She nodded. “Yes.”
“That was mine. How does the saying go? You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives.”
She knew Tristan had a younger brother, Josh. But he’d never mentioned anyone named Cade.
A shudder crept up her spine. She wanted to ask what had happened in that room, in their past, for the anger between them to be so strong.
Tristan answered her unspoken question. “Cade wants me to go back and work for the family business.”
“Which business?”
He flicked her a curious glance. “Barkley Hotels.”
“Your family owns that?”
He leaned forward, holding his Scotch glass between his knees. “I assumed you knew.”
He’d never mentioned it, nor had any one of the numerous guests he’d had to the house. Neither had she read anything in the magazines she flipped through.
Looking down, he swirled the liquor in his glass. “I don’t suppose you should have. It’s been a while since I left the company, and everyone and his dog knows the subject is banned from my ears.”
“Because of your brother?”
He eyed her as if she might be withholding some interesting secret. “Sit down, Ella. Here next to me. I need your advice.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “My advice?”
He patted the cushion. “Sit.”
She sat. But, even with an arm’s length separating them, she felt it—the sexual charge arcing between them like a powerful magnet.
But Tristan seemed oblivious to the sparks and the pull. He was preoccupied with what had transpired in his study moments ago.
He took another sip and let the Scotch sit in his mouth before his Adam’s apple bobbed and he swal-lowed. “My brother’s getting married.”
“Cade’s getting married?”
“Not Cade. Josh. They’re as different as day and night. Light and dark. Josh wants Cade and me to mend our fences so we can play happy families at his wedding.”
“And that can’t happen.”
He looked at her as if she’d said something pro-phetic. “Exactly. I won’t forgive and forget.”
“Why do you need my opinion?”
“I’d like a woman’s point of view. Josh wants both of us to stand beside him when he says I do. I don’t want to hurt Josh. But whenever Cade and I are within a mile of each other, volcanoes erupt. If I don’t agree, I’ll let Josh down. If I do, I’m afraid I’ll hurt him even more.”
She saw his point. No one wanted a scene at a wedding. “Cade feels the same way?”
“Cade is the eldest. He sees it as his duty to keep the family together, which in his language translates into manipulating everyone to his agenda, including getting me back on board at Barkley Hotels.” Tristan huffed over a jaded smile. “You know what beats all?” His eyes grew distant. “I wish things were different between Cade and me. I always have.”
Instinctively she reached out and touched his arm. It was an eye-opener to see this vulnerable side to such a masterful man. But it only made her respect him more. He was human.
He loved, even when he thought it wiser not to.
Tristan blew out a weary breath. “It’s been one hellova day.”
When his gaze found hers, the distance in his eyes gradually crystallized into something here and now, and the kindling that seared down below whenever he was near leapt high. That blush spilled down her cheeks again and she began to push to her feet. She felt uncertain, so out of her depth.
“Ella, don’t run away.”
Pressing her quivering lips together, she lowered back down. “I thought you might want another drink. And the washing-up’s still there—”
“I don’t want a drink.” The hot tips of his fingers urged her chin higher. “I want to ask you another question. But there’s something I’d like to do first.”
That was all the warning he gave before he leaned forward and kissed her.
As his slightly parted lips lingered on hers—moist, soft, agonizingly inviting—shock set in at the same time fireworks exploded through her veins. A stagger-ing heartbeat later, instinct took over. A tiny whimper escaped her throat and she leaned in, too.
When
