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That he continued to play games with her, after taking her to dinner under false pretenses and then making love to her as if she was the most important woman on earth, revived her anger.
“Where’s my stuff?”
He stepped back and gestured her inside. “Some of it’s in storage. Some of it’s here.”
“I told you I didn’t want to move.” She crossed the threshold and pulverized his grin with a hard look. “Not in here with you. Not anywhere.”
“Despite everybody telling you that staying in your place was a health hazard?” He shook his head.
She set her hands on her hips. “So you decided to steal all my stuff?”
“I didn’t steal it.” His measured tones infuriated her as he tugged her deeper into the condo. “I moved it so the contractors I hired could get to work.”
“You hired contractors?” she demanded, annoyed at how control over her life was slipping from her grasp. “It’s my loft. I should be the one doing the hiring.” She narrowed her eyes at his easy shrug and trailed after him as he headed into the kitchen. The scent of brewing coffee made her nose twitch with interest despite herself. “And I don’t understand why everything is gone. Surely they don’t need all my furniture removed to clean up a mold problem.”
Nathan poured two cups of coffee and handed her one. “After leaving your loft yesterday, I realized that you can’t sell it the way it is now.”
“Sell it?” Emma wondered if she’d just heard him properly. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because after we’re married we’ll live here.”
The words after we’re married reverberated through her head. He was taking a lot for granted. “I thought you understood that I’m not going to marry you because of some business deal.”
“But you are going to marry me.”
The man was insufferable.
“No, I’m not,” she fumed. “And I’m not moving in with you, either.”
He sipped coffee and watched her over the rim of the cup.
Emma stared back at him, matching his silence while her thoughts churned. How was she supposed to get all her pieces finished in time for the show? Then, it occurred to her that this had been his plan all along. If he stopped her from working, she wouldn’t make enough to replace the money in her account and she’d be forced to marry him. Her heart skipped a beat. Was he that diabolical?
“Where’s the equipment and supplies from my workroom?”
“In storage. Your clothes are in my guestroom.”
Hadn’t he heard a word she said? “I’ll stay with Addison until the mold is cleaned up, then I’m moving back into the loft. Call your contractors and cancel them. I’m not going to do any remodeling on the loft because I’m not going to sell it.” Her jaw hurt from clenching her teeth, but she managed to add, “I’ll have someone in here either this afternoon or tomorrow to move my things out.”
“And where do you plan to work? You’d better not go back to the loft.”
“I’ll find studio space I can rent.”
“You can work here.”
His offer was grudging at best. He didn’t want her working at all. And Emma couldn’t imagine getting anything done with his presence distracting her.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said, and wished her words would convince him.
“How can I help it?”
“Easy. Just remind yourself that I’m not your responsibility.”
His dark eyebrows arched. “Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“We’ll see.”
Nathan realized that he’d been staring at the set of financials for half an hour without making any sense of the numbers. In fact, he’d been distracted all morning. After five days of searching, Emma had been unable to find space to work. Desperate and running short on time, she’d ungraciously reconsidered her refusal of his spare bedroom as her studio, but spent her nights at her friend’s house.
Despite knowing that he was her last option, he’d been pleased that Emma had stayed within his grasp, even if she’d wrung a promise from him not to sabotage her jewelry or interfere with her workspace.
This meant the only way to keep her from working would be to distract her with kisses and lovemaking, but like the shoemaker’s elves, she was both industrious and elusive. In the four days since she’d been working in his condo, he had yet to catch sight of her.
Every night when he arrived home, he went straight to the spare room where her equipment was set up and noticed new sketches pinned to the walls and glittering works in progress scattered across her worktable.
