what?”
“Like the location of the property the house will be built on. I need to verify there aren’t any restrictions in the area that might prevent you from building the type of home you want. And I need to make sure your lot is large enough to fit whatever design you have in mind.”
He nodded. “I find your inquiries interesting. Why don’t we have dinner tonight and talk about them?”
She leaned back in her chair and stared at him. “We need to discuss it now, Tyson, because I have no intentions of having dinner with you.”
“Why?”
“Because after work is my time. A business dinner means extending my work time into my pleasure time.”
“We can make it both.”
Her mouth flattened into a hard line. “No, we can’t, and I don’t have time to play games. If the only reason for your visit is to—”
“Try my hand at seducing you?”
She held his stare. “You warned me the other night that would be your main objective.”
A soft chuckle escaped his lips. “It still is. Trust me. I haven’t changed my mind about it. But I do want to talk about a house design, as well.”
Tyson was serious about that. Although he would admit he’d initially had an ulterior motive for seeking her out today, all it had taken was for him to wake up to the noise outside his window to know he had put off moving long enough. Currently, he leased a condo in a very prestigious area of Phoenix not far from the hospital. It was large and spacious and had a great view of the mountains. But unfortunately it came with some drawbacks. Like the close proximity of his neighbors. Over the years he had gotten used to car doors slamming, horns honking and the early morning ruckus of parents hustling their kids off to school. Maybe it was time to pursue his dream of living in the countryside.
She was still staring at him, as if she was trying to figure out if he really was serious about getting a house designed. He decided to put her mind at ease. “What you might see as a problem is the fact that I haven’t purchased the property yet. It doesn’t matter, Hunter. You design my house and when I get ready to build it I’ll buy enough land for it to sit on.”
She was still staring and he had no problem with her doing so because he knew she was also thinking about him. Sizing him up. Trying to figure him out. He wished he could tell her not to bother because he was too complex for her to try.
“I need to ask you something, Tyson,” she finally said after a few moments had passed.
“Yes?”
“When did you decide you wanted a house designed, and why did you come to me?”
He could tell her about his conversation with Eli yesterday, but decided to omit that part. “To be honest with you, I hadn’t given much thought of designing a house. I live in a condo and that suited me just fine. However, I knew you were an architect and I knew my plans for you, so I decided I wanted to see your work.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said, sitting up in her chair. “You planned to seduce me so you came up with the idea to have me design a home for you. A home you never thought about owning until after you saw me the other night. You would go to all that trouble to get a woman in your bed?”
He couldn’t help the smile that curved his lips. “No. I wouldn’t go to all that trouble to get a woman in my bed, Hunter. But I would go to all that trouble to get you there.”
She frowned. “Don’t waste your time.”
“It won’t be. I know women, Hunter. I can read them as well as any book that’s ever been published. You gave me the same looks I was giving you at Notorious. The ‘I want to sleep with you’ looks.”
“I was not!”
“Yes, you were. Maybe you didn’t realize you were doing so, but you were. The sexual chemistry between us was strong that night. I felt it and I saw no need to play games. That’s why I told you my intentions up front. Did you honestly expect me not to explore all those heated vibes you and I were giving off that night?”
“But to invent this—”
“I didn’t invent anything. What I’ve done is take another look at my living situation. Of my brothers I’m the only one who doesn’t own a home. Never gave much thought to doing so. My condo is not far from the hospital and pretty convenient to everything I want. But this morning I noticed things I had chosen to ignore. Like the closeness of my neighbors. The noise and such. And the more I thought about it, the more that house in the country, the one I had thought about building years ago when I first got out of med school, suddenly appealed to me again. So I thought—”
“That since I was an architect and you had plans to seduce me anyway, that you would kill two birds with one stone?”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
* * *
Hunter shook her head. After a minute she said, “That night after I left the club I thought about you a lot.”
“You did?”
She heard the delight in his voice. “Yes, I did. I tried convincing myself that I imagined it. There was no way that at after eighteen years you were as arrogant and conceited as you were back in high school. But, Tyson, I was wrong. You are. You assume all you have to do is say what you want and you’ll get it. You love women, although you’ll never fall in love with one. You enjoy sharing your bed with them but that’s about all you’ll ever share. You—”
“Don’t blame me,” he interrupted. “Blame my father.”
She lifted a brow. “Your father? What does your father have to do with it?”
Tyson smiled. “I’m Drew Steele’s son. My brothers and I inherited his genes. We got some from Mom, of course, but the womanizing ones came from my dad. He used to be a player of the worst kind in his day, and even got run out of Charlotte because of his scandalous ways.”
“And you’re actually using your father’s past behavior as an excuse for yours?”
“Like I said, it’s in the genes. But since my father is happily married to my mother and has been for over thirty years, I figure there’s hope for me and my brothers. At least my mother is convinced there is and she might be right. Three have gotten married within a three-year period. Not that I have any interest in getting married, now or ever.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, not able to stop herself. “I tried it once and once was enough.” He would never know just how much she meant those words.
“Are you going through the ‘I hate all men’ stage?”
She tried not to notice the breadth of his shoulders when he leaned back in his chair. Or the way his jeans stretched tight over his muscular thighs. “I have no reason to hate all men, Tyson. In truth, I don’t hate my ex. I pity him.”
He held her gaze. “So the reason you won’t share my bed has nothing to do with him.”
