“What are you doing here?” Nathalie realized how rude it sounded as soon as the words came out, but fortunately Darius didn’t seem at all put off.
“I was on my way to a meeting. But I wanted to talk to you about a new project first.”
“A new project?”
“It’s for Zion.”
“Zion,” she echoed, still feeling totally off balance at his unexpected visit.
“May I come in?”
She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. The house. The mess. She was about to be a whole lot
more embarrassed in a minute. But Darius visit was about Zion, so she couldn’t leave him standing
outside.
“Of course.” She opened the door wide, gesturing him inside.
The foyer was a muddle of sneakers. She made Zion remove his shoes when he came in, and he
never seemed to wear the same pair until several were scattered about. To the right of the front hall,
the dining room table held its usual clutter.
She caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Her hair was brushed, thank God, but she hadn’t put
on a speck of makeup, and she’d dressed in leggings, an oversized green sweater that hung to her
thighs, and very unsexy striped toe socks.
“Sorry, I was working,” she said to try to explain away the piles of folders and papers. “Can I get
you some coffee?” Too late, after he nodded, she realized she couldn’t take him back there, with the
overflowing laundry, the upended box of crayons, the untidy breakfast bar. And the full kitchen
sink. “I’ll be back in a minute. Why don’t you have a seat in the living room?” It was the only neat
room in the house because she and Zion never used it.
“You don’t have to bring it to me,” Darius said. “I can pour.” And when he followed her down the
hall, there was no way to stop him other than throwing herself at him again...a thought that was far
too tempting.
“Sorry,” she felt compelled to say again as she spread her arms to encompass the whole misbegotten
family room. “I’m not usually this messy.”
“I meant it when I said that you don’t have to keep apologizing to me. Not for anything.” He put a
finger to her lips, zinging her with an electric jolt of awareness that stopped her breath right in her
chest. “If you don’t stop apologizing soon, I promise I’m going to have to find another way to make
you stop.”
She knew she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t push him to see if he meant it, shouldn’t do anything to
encourage his interest in her...but just as she hadn’t been able to say no to a dinner with him, now
she couldn’t keep the word “Sorry,” from leaving her lips.
Saying the word again was a dare, one he immediately rose to, as he pressed his mouth to hers for
one perfect second. “Like I said, I always keep my promises.” She was still trying to find her breath
when he asked, “Mugs?”
With her brain still muddled from the teeny, tiny little kiss he’d just given her, she somehow
managed to send a signal to her hands to point to the cupboard. Darius pulled down one flowered
mug and one with black and white stripes.
He filled the flowery mug with coffee from the pot on her counter, then stared into the other one.
“There’s something in this cup.”
“It’s a zebra.” By the time she came around him and reached into the cupboard, her synapses were
firing again, thank God. Though she still didn’t understand why he’d kissed her if he was only here
to discuss something that concerned her brother. “There’s also a giraffe, an elephant, and a tiger.”
She pulled down the mugs to show him the ceramic creatures in each. “Zion likes the surprise at the
bottom of the cup. I have to admit I like them, too.”
“I’d rather be the tiger,” Darius said with complete seriousness, and poured into that mug instead.
She laughed, and when he grinned with her, a great deal of the tension she’d been feeling since
she’d opened the door and found him standing there vanished. Especially when he said, “I like your
brother a lot.”
“Me, too.” And I also like you, she couldn’t help but add silently.
Darius leaned back against the counter. “So here’s what I propose. I finished the Mercury Cougar
several months ago, and I’m ready to build a new car. I’m getting a Maserati Alfieri 1960 kit, and
I’d like Zion to help me with it, if that’s okay with you.”
Her mouth dropped open before she could stop it. “You mean a Maserati Alfieri? The one he’s been
dying for?”
“That’s the one.”
“But you said they don’t make kits like that.”
He shrugged. “I found someone who can pull it all together for me.”
He made it sound so easy, but she knew it couldn’t be. “That must cost a fortune. I can’t let you
spend that kind of money on my brother.”
“I don’t waste my money,” he told her, “but I do like knowing I have it to spend on things that are
important to me. The fact that this kit car is important to Zion, too, makes it worth even more. I
wanted to talk to you about it before I mentioned it to him, though.”
Nathalie knew how thrilled Zion was with this new friendship. Darius was his first real male friend,
not someone Nathalie had brought home. They didn’t just talk about cars, but sometimes veered off
into other guy things, like sports and action movies. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d
heard her brother invoke Darius name over the last few days.
“Look, that’s very nice of you, but—” She put her mug down, stepped back, and forced herself to
forget that she was talking to a powerful billionaire who was so sexy he made her knees weak. She
needed to be totally honest right now. “My brother really likes you. And when you get tired of him, he’s going to be hurt.”
Darius expression was unreadable as he repeated, “When I get tired of him?”
“Talking to him on Skype. Buying a car to work on together. That’s the kind of thing a father does.
Or a brother. But you’re neither of those things. And I know there must be a thousand other
important things that you could be doing instead of hanging out with him. So since I don’t
understand your intentions, how can I not worry that he’ll end up hurt?”
Darius set down the tiger mug and held her gaze. “First of all, when Jeremy wrote to me, his
enthusiasm came through loud and clear on the page. His attitude is refreshing and like I said, I like
him.” He moved in on her, one step, then two. “So where Zion is concerned, I don’t have any
intentions except to build a car I believe he’d enjoy helping me with.” One more step, and he had
her backed up against the breakfast bar.
“But with you?” He gently cupped her jaw, stroking it with his thumb, which left a trail of sparks in
its wake. “I have a hell of a lot of intentions for you, Nathalie. So many you wouldn’t believe it. So
many I’ve been going crazy giving you that time you said you needed after our first date.”