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“No, but you did?”
“As often as possible,” he admitted. “Especially when I was a teenager. J.D. and I...” His voice trailed off. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Sometimes I just needed to get out of the house for a while.”
Colleen tried to imagine Sage as an unhappy boy, escaping out a window to claim some independence. But with the image of the strong, dynamic man he was now, standing right in front of her, it wasn’t easy.
“So,” he said abruptly, “what do you want to slap J.D. for?”
The sudden shift in conversation threw her for a second until she remembered that he’d been listening when she was talking to herself.
“I don’t. I mean...” She blew out a breath and said, “It’s nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing to me,” he mused, turning his back on the window and the view beyond to look at her again.
Backlit against the window, he looked more broad shouldered, more powerful...just, more. The bedroom suddenly seemed way smaller than it had just a few minutes ago, too. Sage Lassiter was the kind of man who overtook a room once he was in it, making everyone and everything somehow diminished just with his presence. A little intimidating. And if she was going to be honest with herself, a lot exciting.
Which wasn’t helping her breathing any. “I was thinking out loud, that’s all.”
“About?”
She met his gaze. “If you must know, about whether or not I should accept the money J.D. left me.”
Surprise shone briefly in his eyes. “And the decision is?”
“I haven’t made one yet,” she admitted, dropping the T-shirt onto her half-packed suitcase. “To be honest, I don’t know what I should do.”
“Most people would just take the three million and run.”
Colleen shrugged helplessly. “I’m not most people.”
“I’m beginning to get that,” he said, stuffing both hands into his jeans pockets as he walked toward her. “Look, I came on a little strong earlier—”
“Really?” She smiled and shook her head. She remembered everything he’d said that morning. Every word. Every tone. Every glittering accusation he’d shot at her from his eyes. She also remembered that electrical jolt she’d gotten when she touched him.
He nodded. “You’re right. And I was wrong. J.D. wanted you to have the money. You should take it.”
“Just like that?” She studied him, hoping to see some tangible sign of why he’d changed his mind, but she couldn’t read a darn thing on his face. The man was inscrutable. As a businessman, the ability to blank out all expression had probably helped him amass his fortune. But in a one-on-one situation, it was extremely annoying.
“Why not?” He moved even closer and Colleen could have sworn she felt actual heat radiating from his body to enclose her in a cocoon of warmth. Warmth that spread to every corner of her body. She swallowed hard, lifted her chin and met his eyes when he continued. “Colleen, if you’re thinking about turning down your inheritance because of what I said, then don’t.”
A cold breeze slipped beneath the partially open window and dissipated the warmth stealing through her. That was probably a good thing. “I admit, what you said has a lot to do with my decision. But mostly, I’m worried that other people might think the same thing.”
He pulled one hand from his pocket and slapped it down on the brass foot rail. “And that would bother you?”
Stunned, she said, “Of course it would bother me. It’s not true.”
“Then what do you care what anyone else thinks?”
Did he really not see what it would be like? Were the rich really so different from everyone else? “You probably don’t understand because you’re used to people talking about you. I mean, the Lassiters are always in the papers for something or other.”
“True,” he acknowledged.
“And as for you, the press loves following you around. They’re always printing stories about the black sheep billionaire.” She stopped abruptly when she caught his sudden frown. “I’m sorry, it’s just—”
“You seem to keep up with reports about me,” he said softly.
“It’s hard not to,” she lied, not wanting him to know that she really did look for stories about him in the paper and magazines—not to mention online. God, she was practically a stalker! “The Lassiter family is big news in Cheyenne.” She covered for herself nicely. “The local papers are always reporting about you and your family.”
