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Seizing her by the elbow, he drew her down the hall that stretched away from the receptionist’s desk. The speech she’d prepared vanished at his touch. She was at a loss for words, wishing his impersonal grip didn’t affect her so acutely.
The hall buzzed with activity, but Emma might have been blind and deaf for all the attention she paid. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but Nathan and the annoyance radiating from him. Clearly, this had been a mistake.
He steered her into a huge office and abandoned her in the middle of the space. While he crossed to his desk, Emma glanced around. The walls held more artwork, this of a modern flavor, by artists whose work she didn’t recognize. Half a dozen canvases sat propped against an end table. Yet as compelling as her curiosity about the art was, the man who owned it captivated her more.
Nathan stood before the wall of windows, hands clasped behind his back, and surveyed downtown Houston. The broad shoulders she’d caressed and clung to appeared no less intimidating encased in a charcoal-gray suit coat that matched his eyes. Sunlight stabbed through the window and drew forth the gold in his brown hair.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked.
It dawned on her that she’d used the excuse of retrieving her jewelry to see him again. “I came to collect my earrings.”
“They’re at my condo,” he said. “We could go and pick them up.”
Him and her alone in his condo would only lead to one thing. “I wouldn’t want to put you out. Why don’t you just bring them here tomorrow and I’ll pick them up?”
“How about dinner tonight?” He countered.
Dinner with him sounded like a prelude to seduction. “How about breakfast tomorrow?”
For the first time since entering the room, he turned and faced her. “But if we started with dinner tonight, breakfast tomorrow will be inevitable.”
The air sizzled with the power of his magnetism.
“I already have plans for dinner,” she hedged as he advanced toward her. Emma backed up. If she didn’t get out of here fast, he’d figure out how effortlessly he made her pulse race and her willpower waver. “How about we meet at nine tomorrow morning after my yoga class?” Preferably at a place where she couldn’t be persuaded to take her clothes off. “I go to Carley’s Café quite a bit.”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “You stood me up for breakfast once.”
Emma doubted that he’d ever been stood up before. Cody had regaled her with enough of Nathan’s conquests for her to recognize that he kept a woman around as long as it suited him to do so. He determined the length of the relationship, not the other way around.
She’d understood that three weeks ago when she’d left the party and gone to his penthouse condo overlooking downtown Houston. But that didn’t mean she had to wait for him to grow tired of her, like all the other women who fell for his charms.
She shrugged. “Sorry about that. I had to get back to Houston right away.”
“And the reason you didn’t call and give me a heads-up?”
What could she say to that? “Because you don’t take no for an answer.”
“Funny,” he murmured, his gaze trailing over her features, “that doesn’t stop you from saying no to me.”
With her heart thundering in her ears, she pressed her lips together to keep from spilling the truth. In the weeks since he’d taken her hard and fast against the front door of his condo, she’d been consumed with a crazy, irrational desire to see where dating him might lead. She’d been on the verge of returning his phone calls when her father had interfered and saved her from making a huge mistake.
“Until three weeks ago, you never gave me the chance,” she said, immediately regretting both the statement and her aggrieved tone.
“I didn’t realize you were that interested,” he said, taking a step toward her.
His predatory intent induced Emma to take a step back. “I wasn’t.”
“No?”
Emma’s pulse kicked up a notch, intensifying her need to retreat. When her back collided with something solid, she brushed aside her bangs in acute frustration. She’d misjudged her direction and missed the doorway. The wall kept her from escaping.
“Look.” She tugged on her earring. “The night of Grant’s party was nice.”
“Nice?” he echoed, his tone neutral.
“It gave me closure.”
He set his hand on the wall above her shoulder and leaned in. “Closure?”
“I wondered what…being with you would be like.” She took a deep breath. “Now I know, and…”
