Ethan was offering work and a place to live. This tasteful apartment all to herself. It was one thing to be allowed to stay here while she looked for a place. It was quite another to have it belong to her. She could paint here. Reposition the furniture in the living room to make the most of the natural light.
Wait a minute.
Part of Ethan’s bargain was that he would pay her. She would be able to afford to rent studio space. A New York artist with her own studio... If that wasn’t a dream come true!
But on the other hand...
And she needed to consider...
She couldn’t really...
And then what...?
When Holly opened her eyes, a drizzly morning sky crept in through the window. At some point she had finally dozed off, her mind twirling about the past and what the future could hold. Now, with morning’s dawn in Ethan Benton’s bedroom, certainty hit her like a ton of bricks.
If something seemed too good to be true, it was.
Not cut out to be anyone’s pretend anything, Holly was only who she was. Ethan was kidding himself. It could only end in disaster. She would do him a favor by acknowledging the impossibility of his proposal, even though he wasn’t able to see it for himself.
His judgment was clouded by his deep love for his aunt Louise. How touching was his concern for her welfare, for her reputation and her happiness. Blood ran thick. A good man took his family responsibilities seriously...
She had to call her brother. She wouldn’t tell him about Ethan’s offer. But she did need his help sorting out this confusion about her staying in the apartment. It would be good to hear his voice. In the end, he was the only one she really had in her corner.
He’d be working out in the garage of the little house he rented in Miami. Lifting weights. Bench pressing and hoisting dumbbells before showering and getting to work at Benton.
“Vinz.” She pictured him, no doubt in a muscle shirt drenched in sweat. His close-cropped blond hair so unlike her black. The round blue eyes marking him as her kin.
“Holz! How’s the Big Apple so far?”
She explained the mix-up with the apartment.
Vince promised to make some calls as soon as he got into the office. “I’ll get it fixed,” he assured her.
“I don’t know if you can.”
“Listen to me, big sis. We’re going to sniff out opportunities for you and you’re going take them. You’ll grab everything that’s thrown your way.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember—straight up or fall down!” He chanted their lifelong rally call—the desperate bravado of two kids with no one but each other to root for them.
After hanging up, Holly held the phone in her hand and stared absently out the window for a while. Thick clouds in the sky moved horizontally across her vision.
There had always been rainy days. No one knew how many more were ahead. It would be such a gift to have an umbrella.
Finally she tossed the phone onto the bed and opened the door.
Ethan was in the kitchen. She watched him start a pot of coffee before he noticed she was there. When he did, she leaned against the doorway. Her hair was probably a mess. Surely she had bags under her eyes from her fitful night. She lifted her hand and looked at her fingers with their perpetual paint around the cuticles and under the nails. She was who she was.
“Okay, Ethan. I’ll marry you.”
SHE SAID YES! Ethan wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She said yes!
His blood coursed. His muscles tingled.
She said yes!
And then he caught himself. Good heavens. There was no cause for fireworks to be launched from his heart. There was no reason to announce his undying devotion in front of the citizens of Manhattan. He was not a giddy groom filled with bliss and anticipation.
A woman he’d met yesterday had agreed to a jointly beneficial contract. He signed deals every day. This was just another one.
With a flick on the switch of the coffeepot he shook his head, trying to dislodge the obvious cobwebs in his skull.
He’d gotten a bit carried away.
Truthfully, he hadn’t been alone with a woman in a long time—and certainly not in the close quarters of a small apartment. Perhaps that had stirred up a primal reaction in him. While the mating ritual wasn’t part of his daily life, it was a natural phenomenon.
Although Ethan employed thousands of women in all aspects of his business, he shunned intimate social situations with them as much as possible. Keeping a clear and level head was what he did best. Women were distracting. Distractions were to be avoided. Problem—solution.
This was the first lesson he needed in order to carry off his plan. He was going to be spending a lot of time with an attractive woman. He’d need to guard and defend himself against her feminine charms. It wasn’t personal. It didn’t matter whether it was Holly, pregnant Penelope Perkins or another actress he’d picked from a photograph.
In three measured breaths, with his face toward the coffeepot, he set his focus. Guard and defend.
Then he turned to Holly, still standing in the doorway. Dark cascades of hair fell around her pretty face, which had a just-woken flush in her cheeks. Her tee shirt was definitely not concealing a bra.
Involuntarily, his body began to lean toward hers. A kiss pushed forward from his lips.
Guard and defend!
In the nick of time, he pulled himself back. Her allure was something he’d need to get accustomed to. His body’s involuntary response to her worried him...told him that might be difficult.
But he would be triumphant. For the sake of Aunt Louise he could conquer anything.
Ethan directed himself to talk, since he couldn’t kiss. “How did you sleep?”
“Great,” she lied.
Her eyes looked tired. He hadn’t got much sleep, either. He was far too tall to stretch out comfortably on that sofa. Plus, his mind had taunted him with replays of the evening.
“That coffee smells good,” she said as she massaged the back of her neck.
“It does. How do you take it?”
“Lots of milk or cream. No sugar.”
Ethan opened one of the cabinets to look for cups. It held only drinking glasses. He hadn’t spent enough time in this apartment to know where everything
