all at once, she discreetly checked her hair and makeup in the mirrored paneling of the elevator. She’d twisted her blond hair up in a chignon this morning before her flight, and several loose strands had corkscrewed around her face. Not a bad look.
Silly. What did it matter how she looked? Reid had thrown her all off-kilter by telling his staff to expect her.
The elevator dinged and within moments William was ushering her into a reception area populated by a stately woman with steel-colored hair, who closed her laptop instantly as Nora entered.
“You must be Ms. Winchester,” she said. “Mr. Chamberlain asked for you to be shown right in.”
Far too quickly, the receptionist steered her through a set of glass doors and to an open entryway at the end of the hall, then discreetly melted away.
The man behind the wide glass desk glanced up the moment Nora walked across the threshold of his office.
Time fell off a cliff as their eyes locked.
Nora forgot to breathe as Reid Chamberlain’s presence electrified every nerve in her body. And then he stood without a word, crossing to her. The closer he came, the more magnetic the pull became. He was all man now—powerful in his dark gray suit, a bit rakish with his brown hair grown out long enough to curl a bit on top, and sinfully beautiful, with a face that became that much more devastating due to a five o’clock shadow that darkened his jaw.
And then he was so close she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. A dark, mysterious scent wafted from him, something citrusy but mixed with an exotic spice that wholly fit him. She had a feeling she’d be smelling it in her sleep that night.
“Hi, Nora.”
Reid extended his hand. For a moment, she thought he was reaching for her, to hug her, or...something. But instead, he closed the door and leaned into it, his arm brushing her shoulder.
The snick of the door nearly made her jump out of her skin, but she kept herself from reacting. Barely. Did he have something in mind that was so intimate and private that it wasn’t fit for prying eyes?
Her pulse jumped into her throat. “Hi, Reid.”
He crossed his arms and contemplated her. “You got the note.”
“Yes.” Impulsively, she put out her palm, intending to touch Reid on the arm to express her thanks.
But at the last minute, something in his expression stopped her. Something dangerous, with an edge she didn’t understand, but wanted to. Touching him suddenly held all kinds of nonverbal implications, maybe even an invitation she wasn’t sure she meant to extend.
Goodness. How had a simple thank-you become so...charged? She let her hand drop to her side and his gaze followed it, marking the action.
“What can I do for you?” he asked simply.
He was not the same boy she remembered. She could see hints of his teenage self in the way he held his body, and small things such as the length of his lashes were the same, but his gaze had grown hard and opaque. It was almost as if he’d grown an extra layer between himself and the rest of the world and no one was allowed to breach it. One of the things she’d always liked about Reid Chamberlain was his smile. And that was noticeably absent.
The man was—according to the news articles—reclusive, and wealthier than King Solomon, Croesus and Bill Gates put together. But it didn’t seem to have made him happy.
What could he do for her, indeed? Probably not much. But maybe she could do something for him. “You can smile for me, Reid. It might actually break this awkward tension.”
* * *
Against all odds, the corners of Reid’s mouth twitched. He fought to suppress the smile because he didn’t want to encourage Nora Winchester into thinking she could command him into doing her will five minutes into their renewed acquaintance.
Besides, Reid didn’t smile. That was for people who had a lightness of spirit that allowed for such a thing. He didn’t. Normally. Nora had barreled into his office and the moment he’d seen her, it was like a throwback to another time and place—before all the shadows had seeped into his soul.
Which sounded overly dramatic, even to himself. That was why he never thought about his own miserable existence and instead worked eighteen hours a day so he could fall into bed exhausted at the end of it. When you slept like the dead, you didn’t dream. You didn’t lie awake questioning all the choices you’d made and cursing the genetics that prevented you from doing a simple thing like becoming a father to your orphaned niece and nephew.
Nora’s presence shouldn’t have changed anything. But it had. She’d breathed life into his office that hadn’t been there a moment ago and he was having a hard time knowing what to do with it.
It was troubling enough that she’d tracked him down in the first place. And more troubling still that he’d been anticipating her arrival in a way that he hadn’t anticipated anything in a long while.
“Smiling is for politicians and people with agendas,” he finally said.
The air remained thick with tension and something else he wasn’t in a hurry to dispel—awareness. On both sides. Nora was just as intrigued by him as he was by her. Reid was nothing if not well versed in reading his opposition. And in his world, everyone was the opposition, even Nora Winchester, a woman he hadn’t spoken to in nearly fifteen years and who’d apparently interpreted his note as an invitation to invade his privacy.
He should be annoyed. He wasn’t. That made Nora dangerous and unpredictable. Unexpectedly, it added to her intrigue. The heavy pull between them tingled along his muscles, heating him to the point of discomfort. He hadn’t been this affected by a woman’s presence since he was a teenager.
“Oh, really. And you don’t have an agenda?” Nora crossed her arms in an exaggerated pose he suspected was designed to mimic his. “What was with the note, then?”
“It’s polite to include a note with a gift,” he replied as he fought a smile for the second time. He hadn’t expected to like the grown-up version of Nora as much as he did. What was he supposed to do with her?
When his admin had called Iguazu to check on the delivery, imagine his surprise to learn that a mystery woman from “his office” had already called. A quick check-in with the hospital told him that Nora had indeed received his note. It hadn’t taken much to guess she’d figured out that he’d sent the catering and would be along to see him in short order. He’d been right.
“Uh-huh. And is it customary to use a private joke in said note and then pretend you didn’t intend for me to figure out you sent it?”
Her wide, beautiful mouth tipped up at the corners and communicated far more than her words did. She was toying with him. Maybe even flirting. Women didn’t flirt with him as a rule. Usually they were much more direct, wrangling introductions from mutual acquaintances and issuing invitations into their beds before he’d learned their last names.
He’d taken a few of them up on it. He wasn’t a monk. But he’d never held a conversation with one or called one again. Not since the day when his father had killed more than half of his family, including himself.
Nora
