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A vague recollection of a dark-haired bombshell floated into his head. “Was she in a wartime movie? Played a woman whose husband never came back from the front?”
She nodded. “That’s her. Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”
“Kind of.” He studied her face. “You don’t look much like her.”
“So she likes to tell me.”
He drew his brows together. “I didn’t mean you aren’t beautiful, Isabel. Surely many men have told you that you are.”
Her gaze dropped to her brandy. She swirled it around the glass. “You don’t need to humor me. My mother is a gorgeous movie star...my sister is a glamorous international model. I get it. I’ve been living with it my whole life.”
He held his tongue and counted to five. Anything he said here could and would be used against him. He had three sisters. He knew how their minds worked. “You should have more confidence in yourself,” he said flatly. “You’re a beautiful girl.”
She pressed her lips shut. Stared at him.
His phone rang. Thank the Lord for small favors.
“Can you set the table while I take this?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Plates are in the cupboard beside the sink.”
His partner Mark’s cheerful voice boomed over the line. “Grace told me what happened. You okay, man? That must have been one hell of a ride.”
“This whole day’s been one hell of a ride.” Alex elbowed his way through the door to his study. “But yes, I’m fine.”
“Blue Light wasn’t good?”
He sank down on the corner of his desk. “Something happened between our last meeting and today. Bayne was backing off left, right and center.”
“I think I have the explanation for you,” Mark drawled. “And you aren’t going to like it.”
An uneasy feeling snaked its way up his spine. “What?”
“Taylor Bayne met with Frank Messer last week in London.”
Alex uttered a low curse. “How do you know?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
He grimaced. “No.” His partner, who had seen him through the darkest of times when his career ended and was still his only close confidant, was a programming genius. Which, translated, meant he was a hacker who could crack anything. “So what were they talking about?”
“Don’t know.” He heard his partner take a sip of something, which was undoubtedly coffee. He was addicted to it. “But you can be damn sure it had something to do with today.”
“He’s laying the groundwork for the court case.” It was all starting to fall into place. Having watched Sophoros’s stock value skyrocket, his ex-director of software, Frank Messer, was getting greedy, figuring he’d let them off far too lightly when they’d parted ways seven years ago. So now he was taking them to court claiming he should have been given a much bigger settlement the first time around. And apparently was trying to alienate the people Sophoros did business with.
He slammed his fist against the desk. “Christós, Mark, we should have buried him while we had the chance.”
“Truer words have never been said. The lawyers think we have a hell of a fight on our hands.”
Great. Just what he needed to hear after this fiasco of a day. “I need the jet, Mark. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Way ahead of you, buddy. Grace has them working on it tonight. She’ll give you a call in the morning with an update.”
“Good.” His twenty-three-year-old PA was a formidable force way beyond her years. She’d have that jet in the air tomorrow morning if it was humanly possible.
“Alex...” Isabel’s voice rang out, a panicked, shrill sound that made him stiffen.
“Is that a woman’s voice?” His partner’s tone deepened to one of incredulity. “Seriously, Alex, I don’t know how you do it. You’re grounded in London for a few hours and you have a woman there already?”
“It’s a long story,” Alex said shortly, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as he beat it toward the kitchen. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.” His partner’s voice dripped with amusement. “Enjoy yourself, buddy.”
He disconnected the call, arriving in the kitchen just in time to see Isabel standing on top of the counter, her hands pressed against a row of wineglasses that had toppled over and threatened to crash to the floor.
“What are you doing?” He hoisted himself up beside her and grabbed a handful of the glasses.
She pushed the rest back onto the shelf. “I’m sorry. I—I just thought we’d want the wineglasses. You had that bottle of wine on the counter and then I got a little dizzy and knocked one over and there was this chain reaction and—”
Visions of an exhausted Isabel falling and cracking her head open on the hard tile let loose a string of curses from Alex. He jumped down to the floor, reached up, wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her down, setting her bottom on the counter. “Did you really think this was a good idea?”
She pushed some stray curls out of her face, her cheeks turning a bright red. “I didn’t feel dizzy before I went up there.”
He shook his head. “You need to eat.” And if he were a smart man he would back away right now. Back away from the eye-level temptation staring back at him.
“Alex...?” She sank her teeth into her lower lip and gave him one of those wide-eyed looks.
“What?” he asked roughly.
“Am I a total idiot or do you want to kiss me?”
He blinked. Closed his eyes. He never lied. Ever. But right about now it seemed like a good idea. “Can I pass on that one?”
“Alex.”
He opened his eyes.
“My friend Jo told me I never engage.” She bit down harder into her lip. “With men, I mean. Which is why I’m asking the question. To see if I’m seriously deluded or not.”
He bit out a curse he hadn’t uttered since his college days. “I’m not the right guy for you, Isabel.”
She gave him a determined look. “I’m talking about a kiss. Not the rest of our lives.”
He shook his head. “Same answer.”
She hesitated, swallowed hard. “You said in the elevator that it’s better to face the unknown than fear it. What if you’re my modern-day Steven Thompson?”
“This time you should walk away,” he muttered.
“Please answer the question,” she pleaded. “Otherwise I’m going to feel like a total idiot. Good or bad, I can take it.”
He pressed his hands to his temples. It’d taken a lot of nerve to ask that question. And it had been his mistake in ever admitting he found her attractive. “Yes,” he conceded finally, “I want to kiss you but—”
“Alex.” The tension in her face slid away. “Get on with it, will you?”
“This is an insanely bad idea,” he groaned. But he was already stepping into her and lowering his mouth to the lush temptation in front of him. Because really, how much would one kiss hurt? “You just about passed out up there,” he murmured against her lips.
“I’m fine,” she said, tilting her chin up so their lips touched more firmly. Then the insanity of the day took over and he brought his mouth down on hers in a sensual tasting that explored every centimeter of her undeniably sweet lips.
His brain told him this was a bad idea even as he reached up and cupped the back of her head to change the angle of the kiss. Deeper, harder it went until she sighed and melted into him, curling her hands into his shirt. He was not unaware of how easy it would be to slip her panties off, wrap her legs around his waist, release himself and take her right there, right now. Exactly as he’d imagined it a few minutes ago...
Except he was a sane man. She hadn’t eaten. She was dizzy. And she most definitely did not know the score.
He lifted his mouth from hers and gently pushed her away from him. “You need to eat,” he said roughly. “This has been quite a day.”
Myriad emotions flickered through those dark eyes of hers. “Alex, I—”
He put a finger to her mouth. “No more talking. Not one word until we eat.”
“But—” The doorbell interrupted her.
“That’s dinner.” He ran his hands through his hair and straightened his clothing. “Go outside and sit down. I’ll bring everything out.”
She gave him one last, long look, then pressed her lips together and slid off the counter. He cursed under his breath as he watched her walk out of the room. He’d been right. He was a dead man.
* * *
Izzie focused on forking the small amount of food she thought she could consume into her mouth at the small candlelit table Alex had set on the terrace. The herbed pasta was delicious, but it was hard to eat when her heart was still pounding and her hands trembling so much negotiating a fork seemed like a new and highly complex activity. And why wouldn’t it when she had literally jumped into the deep end and invited the most spectacularly good-looking man she’d ever met to kiss her—and he had! Not to mention the fact that the kiss had been the most incredible of her life and all she could think about was experiencing more of the bone-meltingly delicious heat that had coursed through her veins. It was as if every nerve ending in her body had been switched on for the first time and she wasn’t sure whether to revel in it or be completely terrified of what she was feeling.
