trying to charm us into, if you tell us the truth. We don’t scare off. And we don’t give up.”
“You’ve seen my list of successes, Melody, so I’m going to ask you, based on my track record, to trust that I know what I’m doing. I’m handling the situation the best way possible for everyone involved. Everyone.”
She sighed a little at that and tried not to be frustrated. Before, she’d been prepared to dislike him and cast him as the bogeyman, come to ruin her bucolic little life. It was harder to do now that he’d allowed her to glimpse the real man behind the charming Irish accent and glossy PowerPoint presentation.
That man seemed sincere, smart, and very determined.
She broke their gaze, looked down, wanting, needing to regroup. And felt his knuckles beneath her chin, drawing her gaze back to his.
“I think you’ll find that my way isn’t a bad way.”
She looked into his eyes, wanting to find what she needed, so she could get past the ball of fear in her gut. All she knew, in her gut and in her heart, was nothing was going to be the same again. She knew it, just as surely as she’d known moving back here to be with Bernie, to take on a whole new life challenge, was the absolute right thing to do. She prayed like hell this was going to work out half as well. “I hope, for all of our sakes, that you’re right.”
“I am,” he said simply and without arrogance.
Standing, all but in his arms, their gazes locked, she felt connected in a way she hadn’t ever been before, and certainly wouldn’t have expected to be. She saw how easy it could be to trust him, to put her faith in him, let him lead the way, and believe everything would be okay. And she knew the townspeople would feel exactly the same way. Maybe her time in Washington had left her too cynical, too suspicious. But she strongly felt that she was right to protect what was hers, what she saw as the most valuable parts of the life that fulfilled and contented her. She hadn’t thought she was alone in those feelings. She’d heard the same sentiment over and over, expressed by everyone in town. But she saw what had swayed them and understood the temptation. Lord knows she felt it. But that didn’t mean she had to give in to it. Not when so much was at stake.
As she moved to break the moment completely, to shift away from him, do whatever she had to, kick him out if necessary, to regain her perspective—not to mention control over her own libido—he spoke.
“Do you know what I wish for, Melody?”
She smiled at him. She was finding it increasingly easy to do. Danger, danger, she thought. But she didn’t step back. “That I’d stop being a thorn in your side?”
His lips curved, and somehow, that half grin was sexier than all the sparkling, charm-filled ones that had come before it. He had offered it naturally, rather than as a calculated play.
“That, too, of course. But I’m referring to a rather more ... insistent, immediate wish.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then slowly returned to meet her eyes.
Her heart started an erratic tattoo inside her chest, and her skin had gone beyond warm and tingly to an almost steamy dampness that had nothing to do with the huge ovens cranking out heat. She should have stepped away when she had the chance. At the moment, she was rooted right to that spot.
“Which is?” The words came out as a damnably soft whisper.
The pupils in his clear green eyes expanded until they threatened to swallow up the rest. That darkness added an element that made him seem all the more dangerous.
“That I could court your favor quite personally, for reasons having nothing to do with business. And everything to do with kissing. Your lips tempt me. Mightily.”
She swallowed reflexively against the sudden tightness in her throat. “How . . . direct.”
“You wanted honesty.”
“If only you could be so where it mattered,” she said, her voice still not as strongly confident as she’d hoped.
“So tempting . . .”
“Honesty . . . or—”
“The natural color and shape of your lips is so striking. Your bottom lip fair begs a man to . . .” He trailed off, his gaze fixed on her mouth, then lifted back to her eyes. There was so much electricity, it was as if a