It was sort of ridiculous how hot he was. It was as if he’d splashed around in the finest end of the gene pool, only collecting the good, the bad rolling right off. Square jaw, straight, proud nose and his lips … they changed a lot. Firm and unyielding sometimes. And other times, when he smiled, they looked soft. Soft and … kissable.
She swallowed and tried not to think about how very long it had been since she’d been kissed. She tried even harder to stop thinking about kissing Stavros’s lips.
“Anyway,” she said, breathing in deeply. She knew what to say next, knew her system by heart. She could explain it in her sleep. And she could take a few more steps away from him while she did it. “We start with that base attraction. What I call ‘lightning bolt’ attraction—” like the kind she’d felt when she’d walked into Stavros’s office this morning “—or what many confuse with love at first sight. You’ll feel a stronger pull of that immediate attraction to at least one of the women at the wedding. As we go on, we’ll try and figure out which woman you feel a more lasting attraction for. But that’s a different phase of the program.”
“And you’re accusing me of lacking in romance. You have this all worked out to a cold, calculated system. I’m not complaining, but let’s be … what was the word you used? Candid. Let’s be candid, you and I.” A smile curved his lips and he rose from his desk, slowly rounding it. “You’re no more romantic than I am.”
His voice was like warm butter. It flowed over her body, so good, and so very, very bad for her. She cleared her throat. And took a step back. “All right, I’m not a romantic. Not really. I mean I was, at one time. But not so much now. What is romance? Warm fuzzies and the unrealistic ideals we project onto others when we’re first beginning a relationship. Romance is an illusion. That’s why I believe in matching people based on something concrete. From these basic principles, love can grow. And when the foundation is solid, I believe love can be real and lasting. It’s when people go with that lightning attraction only, with nothing to back it up, that’s when you have problems.”
He lifted his arm and ran his hand over his hair, the action stretching his crisp dress shirt tight over his well-defined chest. She wondered what muscles of that caliber would feel like beneath her hands. She’d never touched a chest that looked quite like that.
Oh, dear. Wandering thoughts again. And redirecting …
“So, is that what you did?” he asked. “Follow one of those flash attractions, or whatever you call them, and have it end in disaster?”
She laughed and turned, hoping to look like she was starting to pace and not like she was trying to put space between them. “Something like that.” A lot more complicated than that, but she wasn’t about to get into it. “The point is, I know what works.”
“But you aren’t married.”
She stopped midstep, wobbling slightly on her sky-high stilettoes. “I’m happily divorced, as it happens.” Happily might be overselling it, but she was rightfully divorced, that was for sure. “I just celebrated my four-year anniversary of unwedded bliss.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And you still believe in marriage?”
“Yes. But the fact that my marriage didn’t work helps with what I’m doing. I understand what breaks things down. And I understand how to build a solid foundation. You’ve heard of the wise man who built his house on the rock, I assume?”
“It’s buried somewhere in the ether of my debauched mind. Memories of childhood Sunday school lurk there somewhere.” Oh, he did that charming, naughty smile far too well. It was no wonder he had a reputation as the kind of man who could meet a woman and have her taking her clothes off for him five minutes later.
She found her own hand wandering to the top button of her dress and she dropped it quickly, taking another defensive step back. He answered that move by taking three steps forward.
She cleared her throat. “Excellent, well, I’m helping you build a marriage on a rock, rather than sand.”
His eyebrows lifted, one side of his mouth quirking into a smile. He took another two steps toward her. “Different than a marriage on the rocks?”
She stepped back. “Much.”
“Well, that is good to know,” he said.
“You and I will work together to create a strong partnership, for you and your country,” she said, with all the confidence she could pull out of her gut. Confidence she didn’t really feel.
He closed the distance between them and she took another step in the opposite direction, her back connecting with the wall. She forced a smile, and a step toward him.
He held his hand out, so large and tan and masculine. She just stared at it for a moment, trying to remember what one was supposed to do when they were offered a hand.
Her brain jolted into gear and she stuck her hand out. He gripped it, heat engulfing her as his fingers made contact with her bare skin. She wished now that she’d worn her little white gloves with the pearls. She’d thought them a bit quirky for a business meeting, but the shield against his touch would have been nice.
She just hadn’t realized. Sure, she’d seen his picture, but a picture didn’t do justice to the man. He was broad, nearly a foot taller than her, and he smelled like heaven. Like clean skin laced with a trace of sandalwood.
He made her feel small and feminine. And like she was losing her mind.
She shook his hand once, then dropped her own back to her side, hiding it behind a fold in her full skirt as she clenched it into a fist, willing the burning sensation to ease.
“I’ll hold you to it, Ms. Carter. And I warn you, I can be a tough taskmaster.”
Her breath caught. “I’m … I can handle you.”
He chuckled, low and dark, like rich coffee. “We’ll see.”
“ARE you finding the accommodations to your satisfaction, Ms. Carter?”
Jessica whirled around, her heart thudding against her breastbone. Stavros was standing in the hallway of her hotel, a small smile on his face. “I … Yes, very. I didn’t expect to see you here. Today. Or ever.”
He looked around them, as though checking to see if he was in the right place. “This is one of my hotels.”
“Yes, I know, but I assumed …”
“You assumed that I had no real part in the running of my hotels, casinos, et cetera. But I do. In another life I might have been a businessman.” His tone took on a strange, hard tinge. “As it is, I divide my time between being a prince and running a corporation. Both are equally important.”
She tried to smile and took a step back. “So, to borrow a phrase … of all the hotels you own, on all the island, you walk into mine?”
His sensual lips curved upward. It was hard to call it a smile. “Oh, this was calculated, but I also had a business reason for coming by.”
Her stomach fluttered. Down, girl. What was wrong with her? A man hadn’t made a blip on her personal radar for a long, long time. And Stavros was a client.
Anyway, she wasn’t quite through licking her wounds.
The loss of her five-year marriage, and the circumstances surrounding it, had left her feeling far too bruised to jump back into dating. Which had been fine. She’d left her job,