gripped her arms where his had been a moment ago, absurdly aware she wasn’t ready for the evening to end. ‘You were going to tell me who was behind the stalled merger.’
Several emotions curled through his eyes, most of them forbidding enough to send a chill through her.
‘It’s my brother,’ he finally offered. Contrary to the expression in his eyes, his voice was bled of every emotion.
‘Your brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘But...why?’
He took a step back, then another. Striding to the ever-present coffee cart, he poured a shot of espresso. ‘Because like you, for me, family isn’t a word that conjures hearts and flowers.’
Elise wished she didn’t understand what he meant. All the same... ‘That’s still a little extreme, isn’t it? Your brother wants to hurt you that much?’
His mouth twisted. ‘You assume I’m capable of being hurt. At the worst, he’ll make a nuisance of himself. No more.’
The staggering confidence behind the words further chilled her. And yet, she felt an affinity with Alejandro, sensed an underlying emotion that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
She was twisting the puzzle in her mind when he drained his cup and set it down. ‘I think I’ve used up my reasonable workday quota where you’re concerned. Come.’
He walked out of the dining room. She followed at a slower pace, and entered his office to find him returning from hers with her jacket and briefcase.
He held out her jacket for her, and Elise murmured her thanks. About to bid him goodnight and beat a hasty retreat, she froze as he caught up his own jacket and came towards her. ‘You’re leaving, too?’
‘I’m taking you home.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no need to do that. The subway will get me home in twenty minutes.’
He took her elbow and steered her towards the door. ‘It’s late. Letting you brave the subway at this time of night is out of the question. If nothing else, I wish to see you return to work tomorrow in one piece.’
‘It’s really not—’
‘You haven’t already forgotten our agreement to dispense with unnecessary arguments, have you?’
She firmed her mouth and followed him into what looked like a private lift. Enclosed in the small space, she couldn’t think of one thing to say to the man whose presence loomed powerful and vibrant beside her. In contrast, she felt small and shamefully inept, so she turned her face away from him. To the mirror that reflected his image in perfect detail.
Even in profile, Alejandro was unforgivingly captivating. In the harsh light, his skin glowed a vibrant olive, his thick dark hair gleaming invitingly. Elise had never felt the urge to touch a man’s face, let alone his hair. Pursuing a double major had been time-consuming enough, and the casual dates she’d occasionally accepted in college ended when she discovered sex was the subtext behind each date.
That reality had followed her into her working life, but she’d become an expert at holding male interest at bay.
But staring at Alejandro, she felt an alien need to do the opposite, to give in to the subtext of sex pulsing through her right to the tips of her fingers.
As if he sensed her unvarnished scrutiny, Alejandro’s head snapped up. Their eyes met in the mirror. His gaze held hers easily, compelling her completely, so she couldn’t look away. The whine of the descending lift the only sound, they stared at each other as silence seethed, thickened into something else. Something that had intense heat dredging low in her belly, and flaring tingles all over her body.
His gaze probed, darkened with each jagged second. It dropped to her lips, and Elise, as if she were under a spell, parted them.
Someone made a sound. A tiny fracture of breath. The beginning of a curse. Or a prayer. She never got the chance to guess.
The lift arrived with a slight bump and the doors glided open.
And the spell was broken.
ELISE HAD RIDDEN in her fair share of supercars, her father being a firm believer that a show of power and success bred even more of the same. Each time she’d ridden with her father, she’d prayed for the ride to be over as quickly as possible, silently enduring the ‘life lesson’ speeches that came with those trips, while Ralph Jameson had walked away congratulating himself for showing his daughter what material benefits could be plucked like fruit from the nearest low-hanging tree, should she play her cards right.
Tonight, she was far from uninterested. Her gaze strayed frequently to the man behind the wheel of the Bugatti, a tiny part of her not minding the traffic that slowed their progress through downtown Chicago.
Even the silence, although charged with residual awareness from the lift, was welcome. It gave her a chance to breathe, and evaluate just what it was about Alejandro Aguilar that threatened the careful foundations of the walls she’d built around her emotions and sexuality.
When it came right down to it, he’d done nothing presumptive or offensive to make her believe she had anything to fear from him. His comment about her flirting had stung, of course, but he’d dropped the subject at her challenge. Which was far more than a few of the men she’d interacted with professionally and privately had done in the past.
But that tiny consideration still didn’t account for why she felt this unsettling excitement just by being next to Alejandro Aguilar.
Whatever it was, she needed to get it under control quickly.
He changed lanes as they neared her South Shore apartment. In an effort not to stare at his hands or the taut thighs centimetres from hers, or even breathe in the aftershave-mingled maleness of him, she cleared her throat.
‘So...are you going to go after your brother?’
His jaw clenched as he pulled to a stop at a traffic light. One hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, the other scrubbing restively over his stubble. ‘No. For now, I’m choosing to resist that impulse.’
A breath freed itself from her chest. ‘I’m glad.’
He glanced at her before he eased away at the green light. ‘Do you advocate the “make love, not war” route with all your clients?’
‘My commissions so far have involved damage limitation or using the best PR approach that makes the client look good. I won’t be helping you if I advocate an approach that makes you look bad to investors in the long run.’
He slid another glance at her. ‘What do you care? This is your last commission. What happens after this shouldn’t concern you.’
Elise bit her lip as a mildly hollow sensation washed over her. ‘No, I guess it shouldn’t. Maybe I don’t want my swan song to leave a bad taste in my mouth,’ she replied. She looked out of her window and saw her apartment block slide
