by Susan Meier
She laughed. Really laughed. “He’d know I was deflecting and just bring the conversation back.”
“And you deflect again. Until he can’t remember what you were talking about.”
She gazed up at him. “I wish it was that simple.”
“I’m not saying that you’d get it right the first time. You’d need to practice.”
“Like in a mirror?”
“You could do that. But the best practice would be engaging in conversations with him. See what works. Toss what doesn’t.”
“I can’t do that. I have to set things straight as soon as I get home.” She swiped her windblown hair across her face and behind her ear again. “I don’t want to give him the impression that things can go back to the way they were. I want to have the conversation the minute I see him. But that just confuses things because I also need to talk to Charles. I have this horrible feeling that I’ll be in on this dual discussion, talking to Charles about breaking up and my dad about our future. And nobody will hear me. It’ll be a mess.”
“I thought you said your dad was leaving for Stockholm?”
“He is. Two days after my honeymoon was supposed to be over.”
“So, go home after he’s gone. Talk to Charles first, then talk to him.”
She stared at him. “That’s brilliant.” The wind blew her hair across her face and she whisked it away again.
“You got some dust on your face.”
He brushed his finger along her cheek and Morgan’s heart stuttered. The whole world seemed to stop. The touch had been as gentle as the breeze, but it had the power to steal her breath. Add that to him standing so close, smelling fantastic, looking even better and actually listening to her, and her brain almost couldn’t process it.
With their gazes locked and the sound of the interstate a dull hum behind them, her heart beat so hard she swore she could feel it. She’d give every cent in her considerable trust fund to be able to kiss him.
“There’s another reason to delay going home. If you go back now, he’s going to have you go out into the charity-ball circuit with Charles.”
All thought of kissing him fled. “What?”
“He thinks that’s damage control.”
Fury roared through her. “That’s insanity!”
“He’s saying it’s a way to stave off gossip.”
“It’s a way to get me back with Charles!” She tossed her hands and stomped away, yelling, “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
A car suddenly pulled up behind them. The driver rolled down his window and called, “Everything okay here?”
“Yes! We’re fine,” Riccardo answered. “Flat tire. We fixed it.”
The older man nodded toward her. “Everything okay with your friend?”
Riccardo laughed. “Yes. She just got bad news.”
“Okay.” The man pulled his gearshift out of Park. “You should stop at the next town to make sure there’s enough air in the spare.”
“Will do!”
The man drove off and Morgan just stared at calm, casual Riccardo. Had she been with her dad, she would have been embarrassed that a car had stopped because she was having a fit. With Riccardo she didn’t even feel a blip of discomfort. And neither did he. It didn’t bother him that she yelled, tossed her hands, even stomped a little. He hadn’t called her unladylike. Hadn’t reminded her people could see.
The strangest sense filled her. For as sexy and smart and fascinating as he was, he was also very calm and collected. She didn’t have to be on guard or on her best behavior around him. She was with, arguably, the best-looking, sexiest man she’d ever met, and she was comfortable.
That thought brought her up short.
Comfortable? The man had virtually kidnapped her. And the way he looked at her had made her want to kiss him.
Kiss him.
She didn’t know what she was feeling around him, but it sure as hell wasn’t comfortable.
* * *
They did stop at the next town. Riccardo checked them into a hotel so she could take a break while he had the tire inspected at a garage. She showered, put on a clean outfit and watched mindless TV as she waited for his call. When her room phone finally rang, they decided to get dinner after he showered.
She combed her hair and primped a bit, making herself look the best she could in cheap jeans, telling herself she was not trying to be attractive for him. She just wanted to look her best.
Eventually, he called again and he instructed her to meet him in the lobby so they could walk to the restaurant beside the hotel.
When she got to the reservation desk, he already stood there, handsome in his new jeans and plain blue shirt and smelling like someone sent straight from heaven.
As they walked to the nearby restaurant, she reminded herself that she still had a fiancé. Reminded herself that this guy making her feel things she never felt before was also carting her home to her dad. She couldn’t be comfortable or happy around him. She had to stay focused.
Riccardo’s steak sizzled as the waitress set it in front of him.
Morgan glanced at it longingly. “That sounds delicious.”
“I know it will be.” He peered at her salad. “You really should eat more red meat.”
She poked at a piece of bacon. “This is kind of red.”
He chuckled. “You have an interesting sense of humor.”
She wished she could just say thanks. But the truth was she wasn’t anything like the person she’d been with him for the past few days.
“No, I don’t. With you I just sort of say what jumps into my head. That’s why you laugh. But most of it is meaningless.”
“Everything in life doesn’t have to have meaning. Otherwise, we’d all be extremely serious and extremely tired.”
“I had been!” She hadn’t meant to say that. Once again, it had just popped out and she said it because she was comfortable with him, when she shouldn’t be.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “See what I mean?”
“You were being honest. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do? Find the real you? The honest one?”
“I didn’t realize I’d have to be a bumbling idiot to find her.”
“You’re not a bumbling idiot. You’re normal. Normal conversation ebbs and flows. Sometimes people say things that sound funnier when they come out than the person had intended. Sometimes people blurt things out by instinct.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “But that’s how the person you’re talking to actually gets to know you.”
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. He probably thought she was thinking that through. The truth was, the feeling of his big hand wrapped around hers sent warmth cascading through her. He was gorgeous. Sexy. Honest. Real. And so easy to talk to. She longed to open up completely, tell him every darned thing in her life, then kiss him senseless.
Which was insane. Ridiculous. Riccardo Ochoa wasn’t merely taking her back to her dad, she also had Charles at home. Somebody she’d thought she’d loved, but she didn’t. She shouldn’t even want to get involved with another man.
She didn’t want to get involved with another man.
She was simply really, really attracted to Riccardo.
Physically.
It had to be nothing more than a physical attraction. She didn’t know him well enough for what she felt to be deeper. And he most certainly didn’t have the kindness and compassion she kept attributing to him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be taking her back to her father.
For once, she was glad he’d stuck to his guns taking her home. It proved he wasn’t the nice guy she believed. He was a man with a mission. She was just a means to an end for him.
As long as she remembered that, the physical attraction she felt for him would fade.
* * *
Riccardo saw the battle in her eyes a
nd immediately changed the subject. How she handled her life wasn’t his concern, but she was so lost it was hard not to offer her counsel. Still, it was wrong. Especially when the things he’d just told her only seemed to confuse her more.
They finished dinner making polite conversation about Mitch, his websites, Mitch’s new wife, Lila, and Lila’s mom, Francine. At age ten, Lila had told a social worker about her mom’s alcohol abuse and she’d been shuffled into foster care and gotten lost in the system. She and her mom hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years and Mitch had been instrumental in bringing them together.
Riccardo had told the story to have something to talk about that could take him and Morgan through dinner and the walk back to the hotel, but watching her face in the elevator back to their side-by-side rooms, he knew the story had affected her.
“I lost my mom at twelve and she lost her mom at ten?”
“Yes.” He wouldn’t have told her Lila’s story if he’d remembered how old Morgan had been when her mom died. But maybe it was good that he hadn’t. It was the first normal curiosity he’d seen in her eyes since this trip began. Though her story and Lila’s were different, they’d both lost their moms.
“So how did Lila end up?”
“Happy. She works for us. Her mom, too. They had some open, honest conversations, but the bottom line was they had missed each other.” He paused. “No, I think they longed for each other. That’s why they didn’t quit when the discussions got difficult. I was proud of them both.”
The elevator doors opened but she didn’t get out. Instead, her head tilted and she studied him. “Are you really this emotional?”
“Excuse me?”
“You really seem to get emotional about other people’s problems.”
He directed her out of the elevator. “First off, Spaniards call it passionate. Second, look who you’re comparing me to. A dad who constantly manipulated you to get his own way, and a guy who had to have an older friend fix him up with his daughter. Of course you see me as being emotional. You’ve lived in a world with two duds for a decade.”
Morgan laughed then squeezed her eyes shut as if she hated admitting it, but she said, “True.”
“And Charles didn’t stop there,” Riccardo said, enjoying her laughter. When she laughed, her tension left. The confusion in her eyes dimmed. And he didn’t have to regret his part in taking her home. “Oh, no. He went all the way and let his older friend groom him.”
“Um, take a look in front of you.” She laughed again. “I can’t even figure out how to explain running from my wedding. It’s not as if I was such a great prize myself.”
“You are a great prize.” The words came out soft and filled with regret that her dad had skewed the way she saw herself.
She stopped at her door, but she didn’t use her key card to open it. She glanced at Riccardo, her pale pink face illuminated by the light beside her door. “I’m a twenty-five-year-old woman who doesn’t know who she is.”
“You have to know you’re beautiful.”
She caught his gaze. Her long black lashes blinked over sad blue eyes. “Physical things fade.”
“You’re pretty in here,” he countered, touching her chest just above the soft swell of her breasts. “When you’re sixty, eighty, a hundred, you’ll still be compassionate.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know that. We just met. Aside from the fact that I ran from my wedding and my dad’s a bit of a control freak, you don’t know much of anything about me.”
“I know that you connected with Lila’s story and felt bad for both Lila and her mom.”
“Because I understood.”
“Other people dismiss Francine as being selfish, weak. Most are sad for Lila. You felt sorry for both.”
“There are two sides to every story.”
“And maybe that’s what you need to tell your dad.”
As she thought that through, the air around them stilled. She swung her long blond hair over her shoulder. Her head tilted and she smiled. “You know what? Maybe it is.”
Silence hung between them as they stared into each other’s eyes. The warmth in her big blue orbs touched his heart, but the lift of her lips sparked a small fire in his belly. Everything male inside him awoke. The urge to kiss her tumbled through him.
Fighting it, he forced himself to return her smile, though he had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Good. Think it through on the drive tomorrow, while I’m listening to country music, counting the bugs that die on the windshield.”
She laughed.
He should have turned, walked the few steps to his own room and gone inside. Gotten away from her. Instead, he stayed right where he was.
“I wish I had time to meet Lila before I had to talk to my dad. If nothing else she might be able to give me a nice ice-breaker line.”
He wished he could comb his fingers through her long yellow hair. “You have the oddest sense of humor.”
“And in a way, it’s interesting to experiment with it.” She caught his gaze. “Particularly since it seems like you don’t judge.”
“I don’t.”
“How do you do that?” Her eyes told him that this was important to her. Probably because she’d grown up in a house with nothing but judgment.
He shrugged. “I let you be you. It’s been sort of fun watching you root around, trying to find yourself.” Because the more layers she peeled back, the more he liked her. Really liked her. Not just in a sexual way, but as a person.
The urge to kiss her set his instincts in motion. His upper body leaned forward. His head began to descend—
He jerked himself to a stop.
What the hell was he doing?
Angry with himself, he pulled back and rubbed his hand along his nape, avoiding her eyes. All this time he’d been feeling an attraction, but he’d been confident that he’d never follow through because she was sweet. And he liked sexy. Yet, somehow, she’d managed to merge the two.
Because he’d been helping her. Talking to her. Growing to like her.
Just as he’d done with Cicely.
He took another step back. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She smiled that smile again. The one that had shifted his definition of sexy to include everything that she was. “Okay.”
He said a quiet “Okay,” and walked to the room beside hers as she used her key card to open her door and disappear behind it.
Memories of falling in love with Cicely crept into his brain. This time, he didn’t try to stop them. Not because he wanted to remember the humiliation, but because he needed to remember that sometimes his urge to be a knight in shining armor blinded him to the truth.
And the truth was Morgan didn’t want to go home. Yes, she said it was because she wasn’t ready to face her father. But that only made her desire to escape stronger. She might not bolt in God-knew-where Nebraska, but once they got closer to Chicago she’d have plenty of chances to run. Especially if his guard was down because he was beginning to like her.
He tossed his key card on the dresser, thankful they only had another few days of driving. The closer they got to Chicago, the more he would watch her.
Just as he convinced himself he could keep it all under control, his phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut for five seconds before he popped them open and answered.
“Good evening, Colonel.”
“I expected my daughter to be home by now.”
“I told you we were driving—”
“And I told you I wanted her home! Driving wasn’t the order I gave you! I want her on a plane now.”
That’s when it all came together in Riccardo’s head. This was the guy Morgan knew she’d be talking to when she returned to Lake Justice. No matter how many times she called her dad a diplomat, the Colonel that Riccardo
kept encountering was a hothead. Her confidence would shatter when confronted by this angry, manipulative man, the man she didn’t want to lose from her life because she’d already lost her mom. He was her family. She wanted to keep him. Yet, the Colonel knew how to push her buttons and Riccardo was certain he’d use every weapon at his disposal to get her to fall in line.
He paced to the bathroom as two options hung before him. Save himself and tell the Colonel she’d be on a plane tomorrow. Or save her. Which meant she could try to escape when they got close to Chicago. It also meant more time together. More time for her to tempt him.
Except now that he had his bearings, she wouldn’t tempt him anymore. He could be as stubborn as her father. He did not have to worry.
“Did you hear me, son? I want her home tomorrow!”
Riccardo’s last remaining piece of knight in shining armor rose in him. It was small, but it was powerful. He could not send Morgan home until she was ready. And he wasn’t an idiot. He would not make the mistake he’d made with Cicely twice.
“Respectfully, Colonel, Morgan will be home when she gets home.”
Then he hung up the phone.
He perched on the lip of the bathtub and ran his hands down his face. He might have saved Morgan, but he’d also taken the first step that assured the Colonel would dump OchoaWines.com, create his own wine site and sweet-talk their clients away from them.
He worked out the numbers in his head. An undertaking like creating a monster website and stealing a hundred clients wouldn’t happen over a weekend or even a week. Also, Mitch didn’t get back to New York for another week. So Riccardo had a little time to play with.
And he would eventually take Morgan home. She just needed a few more days to bolster her confidence.
But not in the car. Not getting close to Chicago, where she could potentially ditch him—
An idea leaped into his brain and his head snapped up. She needed someone to talk to? Nanna was smart and strong. Strong was her middle name. And then there was his mom. Also a smart woman. Those were the people she should be talking with. Not a jaded playboy, who found her so attractive he was having trouble keeping his hands off her, but two women who knew how to deal with demanding men.
