construction project and merger talk would do it again, she was sure.
Her eyes followed him, sad and lost and haunted. Something deep inside her began to wither, like a delicate flower cut off from water and sunlight. There had been such promise in the seedling of their relationship, such gentle hope. And now that was at an end. She was as far out of his league as a B-team football squad was from the Dallas Cowboys. She could never fit into his world, into his life, with all those differences to separate them. And an affair would certainly be all he could offer her, at best. He’d said often enough in print that he’d never marry again.
The evening had held such promise. And now it tasted like warmed-over ashes in her mouth. She saw him nod as he listened to the tall young clerk, turned and walked back toward her with a satisfied look on his face. Another business triumph, she thought bitterly. For business was his life now, the only thing that seemed to make him happy.
He stood just in front of her for a minute, reading the sadness in her face, her eyes, and his eyes narrowed in a movement strangely like a wince.
“You really didn’t know, did you?” he asked gently.
She turned and went to the elevator silently, pressing the up button with a slow, steady finger.
“It’s been a long day for me,” she said quietly. “Thank you for the drink, but I’d better go on up now.”
He caught her arm and turned her toward him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said shortly. “Look at me, damn it!”
She raised her wounded eyes in self-defense. “Doesn’t it?” she asked, her voice faintly trembling.
The elevator doors opened to let a party of people out—the same Spanish-speaking group that had ridden down with them once before. One of the men called a greeting to Cal, who returned it politely, but without enthusiasm.
He let her into the elevator first and joined her, his face hard, his dark eyes stormy under a wide swath of dark hair that had fallen out of place onto his forehead, giving him a faintly roguish air.
“Will you listen...?” he began.
“Oh, do wait for me,” a small, very cultured voice interrupted, and a tiny, elderly lady in a very sedate navy-and-white suit joined them. Her elegant designer scarf matched the deep blue of her eyes and highlighted the bright silver of her hair. “I thought I was going to get left behind, and I do hate being alone in the lobby at night,” she added cheerfully, ignoring the undercurrents between the elevator’s only other two occupants, “I’m from Tallahassee,” she told them. “Florida, you know,” she added. “I just adore the islands, they’re so...different. Now, my son would love this. I only wish I could have brought him with me, but he was so busy... Where are you two from?” she added with a tiny pause of breath.
“No hablo ni una palabra de inglés,” Cal said in perfect Spanish, and with a faint smile. “Pero me gusta Nassau por su siempre briliante sol y cielo azul, y mi mujer le gusta también. ¿Y usted?”
The small woman smiled sheepishly, nodded and replied, “Nice to have met you!” in a loud voice, as if she expected foreigners could only understand English if it was yelled at them.
As the elevator doors opened on the first floor, she moved out of it quickly, nodding and smiling, and looking relieved as she moved off down the hall.
Nikki, who’d been watching the byplay with niggling amusement, darted a glance at Cal.
“What did you tell her?” she asked curiously.
“That I didn’t speak English, that I enjoyed the sun and sand, and that you did, too.” He ran his eyes down her slender figure. “And that you were my woman,” he added.
Her face flushed. “Oh no, I’m not,” she said under her breath. The elevator stopped and she ducked past him to get out. “Not now, not ever, Mr. Tycoon. Just put me down as one of your few failed acquisitions.”
“And that’s something I won’t do,” he replied, following her down the hall to the door of her room.
She put the key in and turned it, her head bent, her shoulders sagging, her throat filled with tears.
She felt his big, warm hands resting heavily on his shoulders, pressing, holding.
“So I’ve got money,” he said, as if he were searching for the right words, his voice deep and low in the deserted hall. “It pays the bills