relieved laugh was genuine. “Did you look then the way you do now?”
“Not quite.” Lauren laughed, too. “I was four years younger than my sister, Renee. You were all into her. I was practically invisible.” Lauren delivered the last line with a whine appropriate for a jilted preteen.
Christian’s head fell back as more laughter erupted. “Renee Hart! Now it’s all coming back to me. You guys used to live in California but moved across the country to...”
“Maryland. My dad took a job in Washington, DC. They bought a home in nearby Brandywine.”
“Right. That was part of the excuse used for my being rejected. I think she had a boyfriend. I didn’t want to visit LA for a while after that. My sixteen-year-old ego was crushed.” He placed his hand over his heart. “In remembering my anguish then, I can very much relate to your inner child’s pain.”
The atmosphere shifted as comfortable interaction morphed into daunting attraction. Christian opened the door to an elaborate minibar. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“Come on, it’s my birthday. Don’t make me drink alone.”
“Okay, champagne then.”
Christian opened a bottle of pricey champagne and filled two flutes. He handed one to Lauren. Their fingers touched. Sparks. Heat. Did she feel that? He looked up. She glanced away.
Yes, she’d felt something.
“To what shall we toast?” he asked.
“You, of course. It’s your birthday, and given your gift, it’s obviously a big one.”
“For a second back there I thought the plane belonged to a friend of mine, Tyson, and had the foolish hope that you were my present.”
Her eyes narrowed in a face that became impossible to read. “A foolish hope, indeed.”
Christian moaned. “My second try for a Hart girl...rejected again.”
“You can handle it.” Lauren winked. “You’re an old man now.”
“Indeed. The big three-o.”
“Over the hill,” Lauren joked.
“Totally.”
“To your birthday,” she said.
“And beautiful gifts,” Christian added.
They clinked glasses and sipped.
“So...whatever happened to your sister and that guy?”
Lauren shrugged. “He probably got dumped, like all the others. Until her senior year in college, when she met the man who is now her husband and a father of two.”
“Good for her.” He set down the flute. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I don’t see a ring.”
Lauren’s hands flew up in a defensive position. “No, and you won’t.”
“Dang, girl, you sound even more adamant than me.” Christian chuckled and lifted his glass. “To the single life.”
“Hear, hear.”
“So...why didn’t Faye come with you to visit my mom?”
“It’s more than a visit. I’ll be working here.”
“Oh, you’ve relocated for work. Who with?”
“Victoria. I’m her new personal assistant. As I understand it, I’ll work primarily on events for your family’s nonprofit organization.”
A slightly raised brow was Christian’s only reaction. Inside, he felt a pang of disappointment. So much for the thought of a one-night stand with Lauren, or a short-term girlfriend to cuddle with during the cold winter months. He didn’t date women involved with family business. Directly or indirectly, anyone working with his mother was no longer fair game. Any other day he would have figured it out sooner. But that week’s promotion, his birthday and the shockingly extravagant birthday gift had dimmed his awareness and caused him to be off guard.
However, now Lauren’s presence was becoming crystal clear. His mother, Victoria the matchmaker, was at it again. It was no secret that she wanted him to settle down, get married and start a family. All of which were not high on his agenda. And then there was another darker thought. Maybe his mom wasn’t matchmaking. Maybe Lauren was manipulating her. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had used Victoria’s passion for helping others through the family’s foundation as a way to get to him.
He sighed, settled against the car’s supple leather seats and thoughtfully sipped his champagne. The possible truth behind Lauren’s visit cleared away the ardent desire her appearance had first aroused. The last thing he needed was a potentially messy fling with the daughter of one of his mom’s good friends. He’d just been promoted to president of a multibillion-dollar hotel, casino and spa conglomerate with properties on five continents. What he needed in a female companion was someone fun with no ulterior motives or long-term expectations. Right now, he was married to the family business, and for the foreseeable future, CANN International would be his only wife.
He was sexier and more handsome than Lauren remembered. The teen who’d stolen her twelve-year-old heart and remained her secret crush all through high school. Tall, lean, sporting curly black hair in a clean, cropped cut that was shorter on the sides and fuller on top. The eyes were the same—dark, intense—and his magnetic smile still had the power to render her breathless.
Even after she’d begun dating, and throughout a fairly serious relationship that began in college and lasted four years, Lauren had loosely followed Christian, the Breedloves and CANN International’s ever-expanding empire, which was often in the news. A few years ago the company made history by building the first seven-star hotel and casino in North America, a distinction given to them by Top-Tier Travel Digest, the bible for agents and others who catered to the wealthy, the world’s 1-percenters and the 1 percent of the 1 percent.
Socially, Christian was a paparazzi favorite, often making the gossip columns and the tabloids while attending Hollywood premieres and high-society events with a gorgeous girl on his arm. Last year, when he made the coveted Thirty Under Thirty list, she’d bookmarked the online article and shared it with her sister Renee. Every year, the names were compiled by business industry legends who pegged the next group of savvy, successful businessmen on the rise, the ones to watch.
Christian was not only jaw-droppingly good-looking, but he was a smart, progressive thinker as well. Were she in the market for a boyfriend, the man seated beside her had all kinds of potential. But she wasn’t looking, and especially not for someone like the almighty Christian Breedlove. Not wanting to be manipulated by a rich, powerful man was precisely why she’d fled the East Coast.
“How’d that happen?” Christian asked as the limo
