LITMIR.BIZ

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see you. Now you’re grinning like a maniac.”

      “I’m just trying to put a happy face on your moving back in with Gabriel. Inside, I’m crying for you.”

      Catherine pulled back. “It’s temporary, Dina. We’re not back together again.”

      Dina’s smile grew wicked. “Try and tell Gabriel that and see how far it gets you.”

      Forty-five minutes later, Catherine swept off the elevator at Piretti’s and headed for Gabe’s office. She’d dressed carefully in a forest-green silk suit jacket and matching A-line skirt, completing the ensemble with a pair of mile-high heels. It was one of her favorite outfits, mainly because it served as a complementary foil to her hair and eyes. The formfitting style also made the most of her subtle curves.

      She’d spent the drive into the city planning how best to handle the upcoming encounter with Roxanne in the hopes it would take her mind off a far more serious issue—her upcoming encounter with Gabe. Though she’d agreed to move in with him, she hadn’t agreed to anything beyond that. Before she packed a single bag, she intended to set a few ground rules, which put her at a disadvantage right off the bat. Gabe, she reluctantly conceded, was one of the best negotiators she’d ever met and if she had any hope at all in gaining the upper hand, she’d need some leverage.

      To her surprise, Roxanne was nowhere in sight. Considering how hard Gabe’s assistant had worked at turning the Marconi party into a grade-A disaster, perhaps she’d taken the day off to get some much-needed rest and restock on what must be a dwindling supply of venom and spite. Well, they’d have their little chat soon enough, Catherine decided. She’d make certain of that. It wouldn’t matter all that much if it waited a day or two.

      The door to Gabe’s office was open, and Catherine paused on the threshold. He stood in profile to her in front of a bank of windows overlooking Puget Sound and she drank in the sight while heat exploded low in her belly and fanned outward to the most inconvenient places. For a split second her vision tilted and she saw, not a captain of high finance and industry, but the captain of a pirate ship.

      At some point, he’d shed his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his snowy shirt, exposing the bronzed skin of his forearms. His tie had long ago been ripped from its anchor around his neck and discarded, and he’d unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the broad, powerful chest she’d so often rested her head against. With his feet planted wide and his hands fisted on his hips, all he needed was a cutlass strapped to his side to complete the image. As it was, he barked out orders with all the arrogance of a pirate. But instead of it being to a crew of scallywags, he had a wireless headset hooked over his ear.

      “Tell Felder the offer is good for precisely twenty-four hours.” Gabe checked his watch, which told her that those hours would be timed to the minute. “After that, I won’t be interested in restructuring, let alone a buyout, regardless of how he sweetens the pot.” He disconnected the call and turned to face her, not appearing the least surprised to find her standing there. “Right on time. I’ve always appreciated that about you, Catherine.”

      She waded deeper into his office. “I have a lot to do today, so I didn’t see any point in wasting either of our time.”

      “We have a lot to do,” he corrected. “I’ve rescheduled my appointments today so we can formulate a tentative game plan for Elegant Events.”

      She made a swift recalibration, mentally rearranging a few appointments of her own. “Thank you. I appreciate your taking the time.”

      “It’s what we agreed to, isn’t it?”

      He tilted his head to one side and the sunlight made his eyes burn a blue so brilliant and iridescent, it scattered every thought but one. She was moving back in with this man. Soon she’d share his life in the most private and personal ways possible. Share his home. Share space he’d marked as his. And though he’d never come right out and said it, she didn’t have a single doubt that he also expected her to share his bed.

      It had seemed so natural before. Hasty breakfasts that combined food and coffee and brief, passionate kisses that would—barely—get them through the day before they were able to fall on each other again in the waning hours of the evening. Long, romantic dinners, though those became more and more rare as work intruded with increasing frequency. The heady, desperate, mind-blowing lovemaking. The simple intimacy of living with someone day in and day out. She’d experienced all that with him. Wanted it. Wanted, even more, to take their relationship to the next level. Instead, they’d been unable to sustain even that much of a connection.

      How could she go back to what hadn’t worked before? How could she pretend that their relationship had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding when she knew that it didn’t. What had happened in the past colored too much of the present for them to ever go back. She bit down on her lip. They couldn’t even forge a new, different sort of bond. It simply had no future, only a very brief, very finite now.

      “Catherine?” He stepped closer. “It is what we agreed, isn’t it? My help in return for your moving back in with me?”

      “Gabe—” she began.

      His expression hardened. “Reneging already?”

      “No. I made a promise, and I’ll keep it.” She met his gaze, silently willing him to change his mind, to see the impossibility of his plan ever succeeding. “But you need to understand something before we take this any further. Whatever you have planned, whatever you hope to accomplish by forcing us together again, isn’t going to work. You can’t force a relationship.”

      He smiled his angel’s smile while the devil gleamed in his eyes. “And you need to understand something as well. It won’t take any force. All I have to do is touch you, just as all you have to do is touch me. That’s all it will take, Cate. One touch and neither of us will be able to help ourselves.”

      She shuddered. “Then I’ll have to make certain that one touch doesn’t happen.”

      “It’s already happened. It happened the minute you set foot in my office yesterday. It happened again last night during the party. You’re just not willing to admit it.” He reached out and tucked a loosened lock of hair behind her ear before trailing his thumb along the curve of cheek. He’d done that last night. And just as it had last night, a shaft of fire followed in the wake of his caress, forcing her to lock her knees in place in order to remain standing. “At least, you’re not willing to admit it…yet.”

      His touch numbed her brain, making logical thought an impossibility. It had always been that way. Even so, she fought to remember what she’d planned to say to him. “We haven’t set up ground rules,” she managed to protest. “We need to negotiate terms.”

      “The terms are already set. We live together, fully and completely, with all that suggests and implies,” he stated. “Now stop delaying the inevitable and let’s get to work.”

      She lifted an eyebrow and stepped clear of his reach. It was like stepping from the deck of a ship riding turbulent seas to the calm and safety of dry land. It only took a moment to regain her balance. “Strictly business?”

      He regarded her in open amusement. “Here and now, yes.” He leaned in. “But what happens tonight will have nothing to do with business.”

      The breath stuttered in her lungs as an image of them flashed through her mind. Naked limbs entwined. Mouths fused. Male and female melding into the most intimate of bonds. How the hell did he expect her to work with that stuck in her brain?

      He must have known what she was thinking because he laughed. “Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one.”

      “Not the only one…what?”

      “Who’s going to find it difficult to concentrate on business today.”

      “That’s a first,” she muttered.

      His amusement faded. “Not really. It just hasn’t happened for a while. Not in about twenty-three months.” He took

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