His Ballerina Bride. Teri Wilson

woman on his arm. Of course he’d assumed she’d want to sleep with him. She was probably the only woman in Manhattan who didn’t.

      Except she sort of did.

      If she was honest with herself—painfully honest—she had to admit that the thought of sex with Artem Drake wasn’t exactly repulsive. On the contrary.

      She would never go through with it, of course. Not now. Especially not now. Not ever. It was just difficult to think about Artem without thinking about sex, especially since she went weak in the knees whenever he looked at her with those penetrating eyes of his. Eyes that gave her the sense that he could see straight into her aching, yearning center. Eyes that stirred chaos inside her. Bedroom eyes. And now she was on her way to meet him. In an actual bedroom.

      Bed or no bed, she would not be sleeping with him.

      The elevator stopped on the uppermost floor. She squared her shoulders and stepped out, prepared to search for the door to penthouse number nine.

      She didn’t have to look very hard. It was the only door on the entire floor.

      He’d rented a hotel room that encompassed the entire floor? She rolled her eyes and wondered if all his dates got such royal treatment. Then she reminded herself that this was a business meeting, not a date.

      If she had any sense at all, she’d turn around and walk directly back to Drake Diamonds. But before she could talk herself into leaving, the door swung open and she was face-to-face with Mr. Bedroom Eyes himself.

      “Mr. Drake.” She smiled in a way that she hoped conveyed professionalism and not the fact that she’d somehow gone quite breathless.

      “My apologies, Miss Rose. I’m on the phone.” He opened the door wider and beckoned her inside. “Do come in.”

      Ophelia had never seen such a large hotel room. She could have fit three of her apartments inside it, and it was absolutely stunning, decorated in cool grays and blues, with sleek, modern furnishings. But the most spectacular feature was its view of Central Park. Horse drawn carriages lined the curb alongside the snow-covered landscape. In the distance, ice skaters moved in a graceful circle over the pond.

      Ophelia walked right up to the closest window and looked down on the busy Manhattan streets below. Everything seemed so faraway. The yellow taxicabs looked like tiny toy cars, and she could barely make out the people bundled in dark coats darting along the crowded sidewalks with their scarves trailing behind them like ribbons. Snow danced against the glass in a dizzying waltz of white, drifting downward, blanketing the city below. The effect was rather like standing inside a snow globe. Absolutely breathtaking.