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“Dio, not that! Did I want armchairs? Slipper chairs? What does a slipper have to do with a chair?” Emily laughed and he laughed along with her. “What I designed was the building. It was an easy step. I’d become more and more interested in the planning of structures, not just putting them up, so when I started thinking about expanding my company, I decided to take a deep breath and—”
“And?”
And, what? What was he doing?
The details were surely boring to anyone but him
The hotel had begun as a one-shot, a practical way to establish his corporate name in the commercial heart of a great European city, but somewhere along the way, he’d found himself taking an interest in it that went beyond schematics and cost projections.
Now, he had other boutique hotels on the drawing board. The industry knew about MS Enterprises’ new venture, but he’d kept the depth of his involvement private.
A man made himself vulnerable if he made the mistake of letting people know more than was necessary about him.
“And?” Emily said again.
Marco cleared his throat.
“And, I’m pleased with how things turned out.”
She laughed. “Come on, Marco. Pleased? You must be delighted.”
“Well,” he said cautiously, “well, yes. I guess you could say that.”
“Absolutely, you could say that.” She threw her head back, drew in a long breath of air. “I’d forgotten the smell of Paris,” she said softly. “Old, wonderful, so lovely.”
Lovely, indeed.
Her sculpted profile. The graceful line of her throat. The glint of sunlight streaking her hair, not loose as he would have wished it but at least only barely constrained today in a flowing ponytail.
Desire twisted inside him. Hunger. And something more.
The feeling stunned him. He caught his breath.
Then he caught his sanity.
“We’re running late.”
Emily looked at him. The expression of delight on her face faded. He wanted to take back his gruff words, wanted to tell her that he wasn’t angry, that he was, Dio, that he was a man standing on some kind of precipice.
Instead, he looked at his watch as if it held the answers to all the mysteries of the universe.
“Very late,” he said, even more gruffly. “The bedrooms are down the hall. The one with the pale pink walls will be yours.”
He’d hurt her by being so abrupt; he could see it in her eyes.
“The clothes I mentioned… they’ll be in your dressing room.”
“I’ll need things from my suitcase.”
“It will be here shortly, but as I already told you, what you will wear this evening is in your dressing room.”
So much for her eyes showing hurt. What they showed now was anger. Good. He could deal with her anger. It was her other emotions that were a problem.
“Thank you for making all these decisions without consulting me.”
“We had this discussion on the plane. There was no need to consult you. I provide you with a clothing allowance, remember?”
“But not with your choice of clothing. You remember that in the future.”
