It had taken him a week to recognize the pattern.
The woman was avoiding him, going out of her way to make sure they didn’t even lay eyes on each other. He remembered the fear that had leaped into her eyes when he suggested he give them both what they wanted.
There were three weeks until the wedding, and Nathan realized, with simmering fury, that she intended to avoid him until that day.
He should have been happy with that knowledge. Riya was not equipped in any way to take him on.
But as another day fell to dusk, he found himself thinking of her more and more. He was working long hours, negotiating a deal with an Arab prince about building a travel resort in his country, and yet every once in a while, he would look up from his laptop in his penthouse and imagine her on the floor, writhing beneath him, her curves rubbing against him, her gorgeous eyes darkened with arousal, her legs clamped around his waist.
His name falling from her lips like a languid caress.
Running a hand through his hair, he slammed his laptop with a force that rattled the glass table.
Pushing away a hundred other warnings his mind yelled at him, Nathan looked at his watch. It was a quarter past noon on Saturday, one where he should be on his private jet in less than half an hour, flying to Abu Dhabi for the weekend.
A fact that Riya was aware of. Switching his cell phone on, Nate called his virtual manager and ordered him to cancel all his plans for the day.
* * *
He found her in the grounds behind the house, knee deep in mud, pruning the rosebushes in the paths leading up to the gazebo.
The white sleeveless T-shirt she wore was plastered to her body, her skin tanned and glistened. Her long hair was gathered in a high ponytail while tendrils of it stuck to her forehead.
She looked as though she belonged there.
Nathan swallowed at the sensual picture she presented. Her skin was slick with sweat, and the cotton of her shirt displayed the globes of her breasts to utter perfection.
His reaction was feral, instantaneous, all-consuming. His mouth dried, all the blood rushing south. Never had deprivation of oxygen to his lungs felt so good. Never had the dizziness he felt just looking at her been so pleasurable before.
He cleared his throat and she looked up. A bead of sweat dripped down the long line of her throat and disappeared into her cleavage.
Nathan fisted his hands and shoved them in his pockets. He wanted to touch her, he wanted to push her down right there on the dirt, spread her out for him and cover her body with his own. He wanted to feel his heart labor to keep up as he plunged himself inside her and pushed them both over the edge.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been busy with the wedding preparations. Jackie’s been waiting for so long for it and she’s so excited that she’s practically useless and of course, Robert is ecstatic that you’re here. There’s a lot to do.”
“Then why didn’t you ask for my help?”
Her movements stilled. He realized with a pang that she hadn’t even considered it.
He got onto his haunches, and her gaze flew to him. “You really think hiding is the solution? Will you hide at the wedding too? Will you hide from everything that threatens to shred your damn rules? One day, you’ll be a hundred years old, Riya, and you’ll be alone and you’ll realize you didn’t live a moment of your life.”
Her mouth fell open on a gasp, and the shears clattered to the ground. She looked as though he had struck at the heart of her deepest fear. Feral satisfaction filled him.
“Get out, Nathan. This estate is not yours yet. I could dangle it over your head just as you dangled the company over mine.”
He laughed and inched closer, the challenge in her gaze playing with his self-control. “You’re becoming reckless, butterfly.”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m tired of being dictated to by you. I danced to your tunes for my company, for Robert. Now I have a new condition. Stay away from me. Or else—”
“Or else what?” he said, a fierce energy bursting into life in his veins. A hot rush of lust swamped him. “You’ll be all alone at the wedding too.”
“No, I won’t. My plan needed modification, true. And you just happened to be the one that made me realize that. I already found someone I like very much, someone I’ve known a long time. I even have a date with him tonight.”
He tugged her toward him until their noses were almost touching. Until the scent of her, dirt and sweat and something floral, infused his very bloodstream. “With whom?”
“Do you remember Maria’s son, Jose? He’s stable and nice and dependable.”
Clenching his teeth, Nathan released her, awash in burning jealousy. Because that was what it was.
The very fact that the knowledge was sweeping through him with such impact should have warned him. But he didn’t heed. He couldn’t even see past the red haze covering his vision.
That Jose would kiss that luscious mouth, that Jose would make love to her, that Jose would have her loyalty forever because she would give it all.
“No, you went for him because you think he’ll never leave you. Jose might as well be the oak tree in the estate. You’re using him. But he’ll realize one day that he’s nothing but a security blanket for you, that the reason you actually chose him is that you think he’ll never leave you. And he’ll resent you for it, even hate you for it.”
She fell against the dirt, a stark fear in her eyes. “I don’t need advice from a man who could cut his best friend out of his life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date to get ready for.”
Nathan watched her walk away, his blood boiling in his veins.
He told himself that he had no interest in her. He just couldn’t stand by and watch her make a colossal mistake, waste her life like this anymore. If it was up to her, she would never leave this estate, never leave her mother and Robert, never experience anything.
Everything in him wanted to fight the chain of responsibility he felt for her, shackling him.
He made a quick call to his PA and then went back toward the house, intent on finding the woman who was going to marry his father.
He’d first hated her for a decade and then avoided her for the past few weeks. But it was time to talk to Jackie, high time for someone to think of Riya.
TWO DAYS LATER, Riya was rooting through her closet searching for a beige, ankle-length dress she’d once bought in a small designer boutique in downtown San Francisco. It would do very well for the Travelogue Expansion Launch event.
She’d asked Jose if he would come with her after the longest evening of her life. It wasn’t Jose’s fault that she kept imagining Nathan all evening or that Nathan pervaded her every thought.
In the end, Jose had kindly and laughingly kissed her cheek. With a twinkle in his eyes, he’d told her that, as flattered as he was that she wanted something between them, there was nothing.
She heard a knock at the door and turned around.
Jackie stood at the door. Terrified was not an exaggeration to describe her expression.
Unease clamping her spine, Riya walked around the empty cardboard boxes she had brought for packing. “Jackie, what is it? Is it Robert?”
“No. Robert’s fine.” She straightened a couple of books on the chest of drawers, her hands shaking.
Her unease deepened. “Jackie?”