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He ambled into his bedroom and the walk-in closet, and chose black boots, blue jeans and an oatmeal-colored sweater, the color of which he also wouldn’t have known if Stella hadn’t told him when she showed him the array of sweaters she’d chosen for him that winter.
He didn’t know fashionable colors. He didn’t put his own touches on his houses and condos because he didn’t really have homes. He had places he stayed. He was cold. Emotionless. And that was reason number seven hundred and forty-one why a nice woman like Kristen should stay away from him.
It was also reason number one that Nina had said she could never fall in love with him. Never really want to be with him.
He was cold. Not heartless. Just distanced from the world because of his genius and the way he was raised. He really didn’t know how to connect.
Not wanting to think about Nina or Kristen anymore, and the yearning for something he knew he couldn’t have, he grabbed the four newspapers he had delivered every morning.
Sitting on his sofa, he rifled through until he got to the New York City Guardian. He flipped it open but one section popped out and slid to the floor. The society pages. Without thought, he bent to pick it up, but there on the front page, bigger than was comfortable, was a picture of him and Kristen.
And he was laughing.
The photo itself confused him, reminding him of how differently he behaved with her. He slowly brought the paper up from the floor, staring at the picture first, then reading the caption.
Is the Iceman of Suminski Stuff falling in love?
His gut clenched. His gaze jumped to the article that detailed the troubles with his company and the article in Tech Junkie.
Crap.
But the worst were the closing lines.
Could the confirmed bachelor billionaire be dating someone? We doubt it. He has enough money that he doesn’t have to meet women the old-fashioned way.
If innuendos could kill, he’d be dead right now. They’d all but suggested he’d hired Kristen.
And he had.
He dropped his head to his hands, then called his driver and told him to be in front of the building in ten minutes. After slipping into his black leather bomber jacket and gloves, he scooped the paper off his sofa before heading for the elevator.
Outside his building, as his limo pulled up and he raced to the door, the whir of cameras followed him.
Damn it.
* * *
In the bathroom of her suite, Kristen stood in the fluffy white robe debating. Shower or bubble bath? The room came equipped with any supplies she could possibly need, and though the shower gel was nice, the bubble bath crystals smelled divine. It was a sinful, wonderful, guilty pleasure to have the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening to herself to do what she wanted, and she was taking full advantage.
She chose the bubble bath, started the water and poured in the crystals, which instantly became iridescent foam. Immersed in bubbles, she closed her eyes. Unfortunately, as she sank into the water she thought about Dean.
After hearing his story about Nina, she realized she knew nothing about being used. Brad was a man who wanted money and power, and he did what he had to do to get it. Unashamedly. Almost embarrassingly obviously. If Kristen had opened her eyes, she’d have easily seen it.
But using an inexperienced nineteen-year-old to make another boyfriend jealous? Kristen couldn’t even imagine what Dean had felt when Nina had told him. It was no wonder he had so much pride. And no wonder he disliked mixing business with pleasure, given that it was Nina’s father who had set them up as a condition to giving Dean money.
It was perfectly understandable that the situation had scarred him. This also explained his need for agreements and rules. She actually admired him for pulling himself together as much as he had. In the years that followed Nina and her father using him, and a world leader hating him, Dean had built an empire.
So she couldn’t feel sorry for him. He certainly didn’t feel sorry for himself. But she also couldn’t stop herself from coupling his difficult beginnings—losing his parents, being raised by a grandmother who didn’t want him—to being publicly humiliated when he tried to get funding.
It was no wonder he not only noticed but understood when her confidence wobbled.
Sunk neck-deep in bubbles, she almost cursed when the phone rang. Not sure who it might be, since she’d called her parents and given them her hotel room number in case anything happened, she got out of the tub, slid into the fluffy terry cloth robe and grabbed the extension in the bathroom.
