mouth tightened at the phrase he’d used. Not that his reaction hadn’t been her fault. What else would a man like that say to someone who basically compared a potential affair with him to having a monthly round of drinks?
Nala’s tsk-tsking brought her attention back to their conversation. “Most hard work is worth the reward, Michaela,” Nala said with a teasing lilt. Although Mella hadn’t known her long, she knew that Nala didn’t necessarily subscribe to that philosophy herself.
“Right.” She sipped her coffee, mouth curving in a reluctant smile.
Nala chuckled. “I’ll let you get back to your morning routine. But call me if anything comes up about Sanctuary or anything else.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Mella disconnected the call. Despite what she’d said to Nala, she knew she was already being an idiot. Victor was serious, unlike any of the men she’d dated before. The way he looked at her made her want to both run away from and curl up into him. She didn’t want him to laugh at her weak jokes. She didn’t want him to smile. She had no interest in changing him into what she liked. She just wanted him to come closer and cover her with all that masculine intensity.
* * *
It was raining. An expected rain, but still an annoying one. Victor would rather be in the office for the rest of the day, working on the looming Barcelona project, ordering in lunch and leaving only when it was time to go home. Instead he was in the rain. Granted, he was actually safe and dry in his SUV, but the main point was that he was at a mansion in the farthest reaches of Miami, waiting on a woman whom he didn’t quite know what to think of. Michaela Davis. Mella.
She was nothing like he’d thought she would be, yet she was everything his entire being gravitated toward. He’d expected her to be like a butterfly, flitting from one interesting thing to another, laughter always hovering on the curve of her lips. Mella was that, but even more. It seemed that actual light emanated from her. A radiance that he longed to bask in even as he tried to convince her, and himself, that her brand of living was not for him.
In that dark corner of the bar, she had been like a glowing curve of bioluminescence that begged for his touch. But no impulse he’d ever gone with had ever gone well in the end. So he pushed her away.
Besides, she was more into Kingsley, anyway. Victor didn’t miss the way Mella and his best friend had immediately clicked at the auction. She’d laughed at his jokes, looked up into his face with a smile radiating from her eyes. It wasn’t new to him, being looked over in favor of the more outgoing and better-looking Kingsley. But it still sparked something like pain in his chest.
After Fever, he went home to cook, accepting that she wasn’t into him, but he found his mind wandering to her. Her smile, the way she tried with a swipe of her hand to push the kinky curls from her face only to have them float back, tickling her nose into an amused wrinkle. It had been an interesting ballet to watch. All beauty and light. Nothing that belonged in his life. Only for someone like Kingsley.
Victor looked at his watch. It was nearly ten thirty. Michaela had been scheduled to meet him at ten. He wondered if she’d canceled the meeting without telling his secretary. No. Though he didn’t know her well at all, he figured that wasn’t something she would do. Not with this, a project she seemed to care very much about.
But the rain, a light but endless drizzle, made him regret his Italian-leather ankle boots and the pissing away of his morning. Victor glanced at his watch again, remembered that he had a pair of old Timberland boots tucked away in the back of his SUV. He reclined the seat and felt around on the floor of the large truck until his fingers bumped into the hard leather of his boots. He was tying the laces of the second boot when he saw a flash of light green, a Fiat convertible making its way up the long driveway through the rain.
The small car came up the circle drive and swerved neatly around him to park in front of his SUV. A sticker on the back of the ridiculously tiny car read My Other Car is a Motorcycle.
The car’s taillights flickered out, and the driver’s-side door opened. Purple rain boots splashed into the standing water. Black knee socks, bare legs, then a small denim skirt that clung to curvaceous hips. Mella was wearing a light green T-shirt that said “I didn’t claw my way up the food chain to eat vegetables.” A clear umbrella popped open before her head emerged fully from the car. Her hair was damp around her face, and she was smiling.
“Hi, Victor.” She waved the umbrella at him, then snapped it shut after gauging the intensity of the rain with one upraised palm, not bothering to apologize for being late. “Come on.”
After a moment’s pause, he left the safety of the truck, locking the Mercedes with a click of the remote. “It’s raining,” he said once he was at her side. She smelled like soft mint candy.
“I know. Isn’t it nice?” Mella unlocked the massive front door and wiped off her boots on the mat before stepping into the house. Despite the overgrown mess of the front yard and the large fountain that was crumbled and needed fixing, the inside of the house was immaculate. It smelled of fresh paint and furniture polish. The banister to the wooden staircases on both sides of the foyer gleamed from a recent cleaning. There was no furniture. “They did a great job fixing this place up,” she said. “You should have seen it a few months ago.” Her voice echoed in the empty space.
There was something about her, standing in the entryway of a deserted house, that he found dangerous. The whole look of her was inviting, the tilt of her head, the scent of rain and tangerine shampoo that sweetened the air around her, the clinging invitation of the short denim skirt. Victor wanted to move closer, so he stayed in the doorway. If he were Kingsley, he wouldn’t want a man who hadn’t had sex in over two years sniffing after the next woman to end up in his bed.
“We’re here to look at the grounds,” he said carefully, wanting very much to wrap his hands around her hips and test the feel of her. “But the rain makes it too difficult to see what needs to be done. We can come back another time when it’s dry.”
Mella looked at him with her big eyes from under her big hair, her head slightly tilted as she smiled. “We’re here. We might as well look at the grounds now. A wet lawn looks pretty much the same as a dry one.”
When he didn’t move, she shrugged and walked toward him, coming back out of the house. He stepped out of her way before she could reach him. “But you’re right about one thing, though. Why go through the house when the exterior is all you need to see?” Mella hooked her umbrella over one arm and looped the other through his. It was only his surprise and her boldness that allowed her to tug him around the wide wraparound porch, down a flight of marble stairs and out to the overgrown backyard.
The rain was light as a woman’s fingers on his head and cheeks, its touch cool but soothing after the heat of the morning. Despite his earlier complaints, Victor breathed in the smell of the rain and of the green grass under his feet with a minute shudder of pleasure. This was another part of his job he loved—wading into the disorder of nature and finding harmony in it.
The grounds were large, but he’d worked on larger. The grass was overgrown, the weeds bold enough to take over nearly every inch of free space, leaving room for occasional sprouts of wildflowers and dandelions. A small orchard of mango trees lined the back of the property while a high garden maze, at least seven feet high, that had lost nearly all of its rigid form, took up nearly half the space. He would have to fix that.
“It looks daunting,” she said. “What do you think?”
Watching her with
