LITMIR.BIZ

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       CHAPTER FIVE

      NIC was still letting Rowan’s remark eat at him the next morning, and he couldn’t fathom why. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard variations of it from other women.

      He had concluded over the years that there was a deficiency in him that portrayed him as not needing what others did: a home, family, love. And since he had been denied those things all his life he had learned to live without them. He didn’t need them. It was a closed loop.

      So why did he feel so unfairly judged by Rowan’s, I wish you had some feeling of having a home and family here? Even if he wanted to be different, he couldn’t. The thought of trying to change made his hands curl into fists and a current of nervousness pulse through his system.

      “I’m going for groceries!” she shouted from the bottom floor, startling him from his introspection.

      Good, he thought, needing a reprieve from the way she upset his equilibrium. “Check the car insurance,” he responded in a yell.

      “Okay. Bye!”

      He let out a sigh, forcing himself back to his desk and the work spread over it, dimly aware of the distant hum of the garage door and then the growl of a motor—

      She wouldn’t.

      Leaping to his feet, he shot open the window in time to see his vintage black convertible, top down, slithering with the speed of a hungry mamba up the curving drive. Tucking fingertip and thumb against his teeth, he pierced the air with a furious whistle.

      The brake lights came on. Her glossy head turned to look back at the house.

      Nic pointed at the front steps and met her there a few seconds later. Rowan chirped the brakes as she stopped before him, staying behind the wheel while all eight cylinders purred. Glamorous Tiffany sunglasses obscured half her face, but her mouth trembled in a subtle betrayal of nervousness before she sat a little straighter and gave him a lady-of-the-manor, “Yes?”

      “What the hell are you doing?” He hitched his elbow on the top of the windscreen from the passenger side.

      “You said to check the insurance. This one is still valid.”

      “So is the hatchback.”

      “This is more fun.” She pulled out one of her cheeky grins, trying to cajole him into indulging her.

      He narrowed his eyes, determined not to fall for her act the way the rest of his sex did. “And you know that how?”

      Her nose crinkled. “I might have taken Black Betty here for a spin once or twice before. But I always fill the tank.” The assertive finger she lifted fell. “Today that could be a problem, though. I took the petty cash from the kitchen, but it wasn’t much.”

      “You are utterly shameless, aren’t you? I’m speechless.” Unaccountably, he had to suppress an urge to laugh.

      “Okay. Well, could you … um … step back while you ponder what you’d like to say?”

      “Get out of my car, Rowan!”

      “Oh, Nic, don’t be like that,” she coaxed, leaning toward him so the chunky zipper of her flight jacket gaped open and showed him the line of her dark plum scooped-shirt plastered low across her breasts. Pale globes swelled over the top.

      “Like what?” He tried not to get distracted. “I know you. You’ll start looking at a basket of puppies and won’t notice the rain’s started again.”

      But was he any different? A monsoon could blow in at this moment and he’d still be fascinated by those puppies.

      She caught him looking. He wasn’t exactly being discreet, so it wasn’t a surprise to lift his gaze and find a smug grin of womanly power widening her lips. In the way of all beauties who recognized the advantage of their appeal, she assumed it was legal tender.

      “I’ll put the top up at the first spit, I promise.” She slipped the car into gear.

      He shook his head, as much at himself for revealing his weakness as at her for thinking she had him where she wanted him. “No.”

      “Look at this gorgeous morning.” She gestured expansively at the broken clouds scudding across the brilliant blue sky. Streaks of sunlight bathed the rainwashed landscape in pockets of gold. “Doesn’t it make you want to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair?”

      He never allowed himself to be susceptible to Rowan’s appealing enthusiasm. Old reflexes crowded a refusal onto his tongue. Park the convertible and use the hatchback. I have to work. Work was the one thing he did care about. It was always there and, since it was all he would ever have, he was making a legacy of it.

      But a damp sweet breeze floated across his face, hinting at spring. It turned his mind to the instinctive pursuits of the season—the mating season. His blood warmed with male appreciation of the youthful female smiling up at him with such guile.

      Seduce her. The words whispered on the air.

      At the very least he should remind her that batting her lashes had consequences.

      “Give me the keys,” he said on impulse.

      “Oh, Nic!” Rowan cut the engine and flung open the driver’s door. As he came around to her side, a long thigh in tight green jeans stretched out. Tall boots were planted with firm temper. “Why do you have to be like this? You’re just like everyone else who thinks they own my life. ‘No, Rowan, you can’t possibly have five minutes of enjoying yourself. Take the housekeeper’s hatchback because that’s what you are now.’ What do you gain from these power trips, huh, Nic? What?”

      She stood before him in the V of the open door. The full impact of her tough, piqued magnificence hit him like a truck. He’d thought to play her at her own game, but the stakes were high. It took everything he had to hold out a steady hand.

      “I get to drive. Are you going to stand there and sulk or move to the other seat?”

      “You’re coming with me? To the market?”

      Her stunned surprise was mostly hidden by her sunglasses, but he got to watch her elegant chin drop and her glossy lips part. The urge to kiss her edged him into her space.

      “Wouldn’t you like company? I have my wallet.” He felt for it.

      She shook back her hair, taking a second to eye him warily. If he hadn’t felt the weak sunshine before, he got a full blast of fireball heat as they stood facing each other. The attraction built in exponential waves of silence, bouncing back and forth, compressing with super-nova potential for explosion. Excitement for the chase swelled in him like a wind catching a sail.

      “Of course.”

      Her winning smile was meant to disarm and it did.

      His abdomen tightened, but when she made an abbreviated move to slip around him he stayed exactly where he was. He wanted her to brush up against him.

      The barest hint of nervousness diluted her bravado before she stated airily, “I guess I’ll crawl through.”

      She planted her knee in the driver’s seat and offered him a breathtaking view of her wiggling backside while she maneuvered into the passenger seat. Righting herself, she inquired sweetly, “Will you be warm enough without a jacket?”

      “Plenty,” he drawled, his jeans feeling as snug as hers were. This was insane. “The market and back,” he stated as he dropped behind the wheel. “I have a corporation to run.”

      “I know, and I appreciate you doing this.”

      Her hand grazed his bare wrist as he turned the key. All the hair stood up on his arm.

      “I want us to be friends, Nic.”

      His

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