Like she actually wanted him to be different?
‘Yes. Ah.’ He smiled wryly, and she had a feeling he’d guessed her entire thought process, not for the first time this evening.
‘That must be handy.’
‘It has its benefits.’ He spoke neutrally, without the usual flippant lightness and Millie felt a little dart of curiosity. For the first time Chase looked tense, his jaw a little bunched, his expression a little set. He didn’t smile as he pulled out a chair for her at the cozy table for two and flickered with candlelight in the twilit darkness.
Millie’s mind was, as usual, working overtime. ‘The Bryant family owns this resort.’
‘Bingo.’
‘My company manages their assets.’ That was how she’d ended up here, waiting out her week of enforced holiday, indolent luxury. Jack had suggested it.
‘And you have a rule about mixing business with pleasure?’
‘The point is moot. I don’t handle their account.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He spoke with an edge she hadn’t heard since she’d met him. Clearly his family and its wealth raised his hackles.
‘So you’re one of the Bryants,’ she said, knowing instinctively such a remark would annoy him. ‘Which one?’
‘You know my family?’
‘Who doesn’t?’ The Bryants littered the New York tabloids and society pages, not that she read either. But you couldn’t so much as check your email without coming across a news blurb or scandalous headline. Had she read about Chase? Probably, if she’d paid attention to such things. There were three Bryant boys, as far as she remembered, and they were all players.
‘I’m the youngest son,’ Chase said tautly. He leaned back in his chair, deliberately relaxed in his body if not his voice. ‘My older brother Aaron runs the property arm of Bryant Enterprises. My middle brother Luke runs the retail.’
‘And you do your own thing.’
‘Yes.’
That dart of curiosity sharpened into a direct stab. Why didn’t Chase work for the family company? ‘There’s no Bryant Architecture, is there?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Definitely not.’
‘So what made you leave the family fold?’
‘We’re getting personal, then?’
‘Are we?’
‘Why did you throw out your canvas?’
Startled, she stared at him, saw his sly, silky little smile. ‘I asked you first.’
‘I don’t like taking orders. And you?’
‘I don’t like painting.’
He stared at her; she stared back. A stand-off. So she wasn’t the only one with secrets. ‘Interesting,’ he finally mused. He poured them both sparkling water. ‘You don’t like painting, but you decided to drag all that paraphernalia to the beach and set up your little artist’s studio right there on the sand?’
She shrugged. ‘I used to like it, when I was younger.’ A lot younger and definitely less jaded. ‘I thought I might like to try it again.’
‘What changed your mind?’
Another shrug. She could talk about this. This didn’t have to be personal or revealing. She wouldn’t let it be. ‘I just wasn’t feeling it.’
‘You don’t seem like the type to rely on feelings.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Still typecasting me, Chase?’
He laughed, an admitted defeat. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I play to type.’
‘On purpose.’
She eyed him uneasily. Perhaps this was personal after all. And definitely revealing. ‘Maybe.’
‘Which means you aren’t what you seem,’ Chase said softly, ‘are you?’
‘I’m exactly what I seem.’ She sounded defensive. Great.
‘You want to be exactly what you seem,’ he clarified. ‘Which is why you play it that way.’
She felt a lick of anger, which was better than the dizzying combination of terror and lust he’d been stirring up inside her. ‘What did you do, dust off your psychology textbook?’
He laughed and held up his hands. ‘Guilty. I’m bored on this holiday, what can I say?’
And, just like that, he’d defused the tension that had been thickening in the air, tightening inside her. Yet Millie could not escape the feeling—the certainty—that he’d chosen to do it, that he’d backed off because he’d wanted to, not because of what she wanted.
One person at this table was calling the shots and it wasn’t her.
‘So.’ She breathed through her nose, trying to hide the fact that her heart was beating hard. She wanted to take a big, dizzying gulp of air, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. ‘If you’re so bored, why are you on holiday?’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
She blinked, not sure if he was joking. ‘How’s that?’
‘The stress was getting to me.’
He didn’t look stressed. He looked infuriatingly relaxed, arrogantly in control. ‘The holiday must be working.’
‘Seems to be.’ He sounded insouciant, yet deliberately so. He was hiding something, Millie thought. She’d tried to strike that note of breeziness too many times not to recognise its falseness.
‘So are we actually going to eat?’ He hadn’t pressed her, so she wouldn’t press him. Another deal, this one silently made.
‘Your wish is my command.’
Within seconds a waiter appeared at the table with a tray of food. Millie watched as he ladled freshly grilled snapper in lime juice and coconut rice on her plate. It smelled heavenly.
She waited until he’d served Chase and departed once more before saying dryly, ‘Nice service. Being one of the Bryant boys has its perks, it seems.’
‘Sometimes.’ Again that even tone.
‘Are you staying at the resort?’
‘I have my own villa.’ He stressed the ‘own’ only a little, but Millie guessed it was a sore point. Had he worked for what he had? He was probably too proud to tell her. She wouldn’t ask.
She took a bite of her fish. It tasted heavenly too, an explosion of tart and tender on her tongue. She swallowed and saw Chase looking at her. Just looking, no deliberate, heavy-lidded languor, and yet she felt her body respond, like an antenna tuned to some cerebral frequency. Everything jumped to alert, came alive.
It had been so long.
She took another bite.
‘So why are you on holiday, Millie?’
Why did the way he said her name sound intimate? She swallowed the fish. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, no. Boss’s. I haven’t taken any holiday in a while.’
‘How long?’
That bite of fish seemed to lodge in her chest, its exquisite tenderness now as tough as old leather. Finally, with an audible and embarrassing gulp, she managed, ‘Two years.’
Chase cocked his head and continued just looking. How much did