particularly busy time for the company. In addition to my usual workload, I’ve got several important events to manage and business trips coming up, as well.”
Tatiana listened to his excuses without looking away from him. The brightness of her smile had dimmed a bit, but her determination still shone brightly as she said, “I know I haven’t given you any warning, so maybe if I wait until your schedule eases a bit—”
“My schedule never eases.”
When her expression softened with concern, Ian was reminded of the way his mother and his sister looked when they were worried about him.
“I’m sure there are other CEOs in Seattle who could work with you.” And no doubt every last one of them would jump at the chance to spend a couple of weeks with her. But even as he reached for his phone so that he could give her their numbers, he hated the idea of Tatiana sharing an office with any of them. What if one of them tried something with her?
“I know there are plenty of other CEOs in Seattle I could call. But you’re special, Ian. And I’d very much like to shadow you for this role.”
Half a dozen further reasons why he couldn’t say yes lay on the tip of his tongue, but he was well aware that only one was really true: He didn’t trust himself with Tatiana for an hour, let alone a week. Already, from nothing more than this one short conversation, the sparks and the heat between them were stronger than he could ever remember with another woman.
The less time they spent together, the better it would be for both of them. Tatiana was a young, talented beauty with eyes full of wonder and dreams and the certainty of endless possibilities. Whereas Ian knew from first-hand experience just how impossible some things really were. He’d already crushed the wonder and dreams and endless possibilities in his ex-wife. He’d never forgive himself if he did the same to Tatiana.
So though he wished he could spare her feelings, he knew it wouldn’t be wise to sugar-coat his answer and give her hope that he’d change his mind. “No.”
Surprise didn’t flicker in her eyes. But disappointment was there, and it twisted in his gut despite the fact that he was doing the right thing. Because if he ever made the mistake of touching her—if he ever let himself have her even for an hour—he couldn’t imagine a world in which he’d ever be able to let her go again. Especially not to find pleasure with another man.
He’d learned at Marcus and Nicola’s wedding that Tatiana dreamed of long white dresses and lacy veils, and had been picturing her own wedding since she was a little girl playing in the backyard in her mother’s wedding dress. Ian could never again be a part of that dream for any woman, regardless of how much he wanted her.
But even as he moved to take a step away from her, she was closing the distance between them in her sexy red heels. Her skin was flushed and soft looking as she stopped barely a breath from him to ask, “Why?”
He understood, suddenly, why she’d been such a success. It wasn’t just that she was a great actor. She also didn’t seem to know fear, didn’t hesitate or hold things back where other people would instinctively have done all of the above in the face of his firm no.
“I heard all of the reasons you’ve just given me,” she continued in the same forthright and open manner with which she’d spoken to him in Marcus’s Napa Valley vineyard months ago, “but none of those are the real reason you’re saying no, are they?”
For a moment—one split second of temporary madness—he was tempted to show her exactly why. To drag her into his arms and steal a kiss that she’d never forget. To show her the force, the power, that the intense attraction between them had.
And the damage it could do.
Self-control asserted itself just in time for him to curl his hands into fists in his pockets instead of in her silky hair, and he was carefully weighing his words, measuring his response, when his office door flew open.
“Aha! I knew I’d find you here, still working. Ford is waiting in the car downstairs to drag you to Mom and Dad’s house right aw—” His sister, Mia, suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. “Tatiana, I didn’t know you were in Seattle already. It’s so great to