by Abby Wood
She kicked a discarded shoe out of her path, looked up, saw a solid form of a man beside the coffee table, and screamed. Her wine fell out of her hand. The goblet shattered on the floor at her feet. “W-what are you doing in my apartment?”
Chapter Two
Katina stood before him in a maroon bra. The tops of her breasts spilled over the edges. Trent’s body hardened. A pair of purple panties rode low on her hips, showing off the slight roundness of her lower stomach. Jesus, he loved that part of a woman’s body.
A real woman who had curves and softness appealed to him. He had no desire for a woman whose boobs came out of a catalog, or could brag about having six percent body fat and wear a size zero. When he held a woman in the dark or under the covers, he wanted to know without a doubt, he was touching a woman.
He hadn’t realized her hair was auburn when she had it up in a clip. His fingers curled. He had a weakness for auburn-haired women.
Katina planted her hands on her bare hips. “How the hell did you get in my apartment?”
“Proving my point about how bad an idea it is not to have a newer dead bolt installed on your door and actually using it. One that I can’t open with at least two keys in my pocket. That means anyone with half a brain could get into the apartment, and you wouldn’t even hear them.” He shrugged out of his jacket. “I’ve made a call and arranged to have someone install a dead bolt on your door, and as much as I’d love to stand here and enjoy your lovely body, it’s probably wise for you to get dressed. I wouldn’t want someone else to see you this way.”
He recognized the moment her lack of clothing came into play. She crossed her arms and blushed. He gave her another look, taking his time. Definitely, the loveliest woman he’d ever seen.
A body made for sex with the reaction of an innocent. Something about her made him want to hold on to her and protect her from others, because she had no clue about the way she affected the opposite sex. She led men to desperation, like her ex-boyfriend he’d laid out.
“Oh. My. God.” She gawked at him and mumbled, “I can’t believe you.”
“Soon as the dead bolt is installed, I’ll be on my way.” He tossed his jacket toward the leather couch.
She clamped her lips together and muffled a scream. He watched her whirl around and stomp down the hallway. The burst of anger made her ass clench and bounce in the most hypnotic way.
A door slammed. He smiled and strolled to the open kitchen to find the broom and paper towels to wipe up the spill. Halfway through sweeping up the shards of glass, he watched Katina come out of her room. He finished the job and carried the dustpan to her garbage can without saying a word.
She’d changed into jeans and a rocker T-shirt that hung off one shoulder. He took a second peek at her and laughed inside. She’d even taken the time to put on a pair of crazy socks with toes. He’d never seen such a thing, and he couldn’t help looking again.
Her gaze stayed on him, and he gave her time to get over her snit while he put everything away, found more wine, and poured them each a new glass. He held out her drink, grinning when she snatched it out of his hand. She had something to say, and he imagined it was only a matter of time before she spoke her mind.
“An hour, and I’ll be gone. You can handle sharing a drink while we wait together.” He held out his arm, motioning toward the couch.
She followed him and took a seat by the window in an armed chair, opposite of the sofa, and the farthest spot away from him she could get. “Can you forget what you saw?”
He leaned back against the cushion and stretched his legs out, grinning. “I’ve seen women with less on.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She waved her hand in front of her. “I don’t need to know about your women.”
“Then what?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I was in a hurry this morning…”
“And?”
“I didn’t take the time to see what I grabbed out of my dresser, okay?” She glanced away, stuck out her lower lip, and blew her long bangs out of her eyes. “Kill me now,” she muttered.
“You’ll have to give me another hint.” He hung his arm over the back of the couch.
“I didn’t match,” she said, letting her hair fall forward, covering half her face. “It’s one thing for me to know it, another for everyone else to know it for a fact. My life is about color coordination, putting stripes with bold reds, plaids with the Scottish tastes. I’m an interior designer, creating million-dollar rooms. People pay me to match.”
“I still don’t—”
“No one would suspect that personally, I could care less whether my underwear matches…or how scattered my own house is at the moment.” She faced him again and stuck her chin in the air, narrowing her eyes. “How I dress or the fact that there are dirty clothes in my hallway does not in any way reflect my professional career, just so you know.”
Match? He sipped the wine, buying more time to think about what she was saying. If it wasn’t about him catching her without clothes, then…
“Ah…” He nodded, looking around the room. “I don’t need you to change the inside of my house, so I’m not worried about your talents matching drapes with pillows.”
“I’m under a lot of stress. You’re not helping matters.” She glared and muttered, “Not another word.”
“Absolutely not.” He grinned.
He loved it. When most women shied away from showing their bodies, she wasn’t concerned about how much flesh she flashed his way.
Her concern over her bra and underwear not matching was the last thing he was thinking about when he saw her. Even before she’d made an appearance, her apartment, though stylish and clean, had an array of clothes, books, piles of fabric, and bags littering the main room. On first impression, he’d guessed she was laid-back and threw herself into whatever interest caught her eye.
An interior designer? He rubbed his hand over the soft, plush leather of her couch. He never would’ve guessed.
“I wish you’d go away.” She crossed her legs. “I’ve lived here for a year, and I’ve always felt 100 percent safe, and I don’t appreciate you forcing yourself on me.”
“You need a dead bolt,” he said.
“Maybe so, but you have no right to make sure I get one. You also don’t have the right to ask someone to install one for me.”
“Humor me.”
She fascinated him. Her looks had grabbed his attention when he’d punched her admirer for not respecting her wishes. Her lack of awareness over her safety demanded he take her under his protection, but this…this odd request to keep her secret begged him to find out more about her.
“The wine is good.” He held the red ambrosia under his nose and inhaled. “Have you tried Torbreck Bothie?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “So?”
“So, what?”
“Have you tried the wine named Torbreck Bothie?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve only recently started attending wine-tasting events with my friend Doreen. This one, I bought last weekend. I liked it, because it’s sweeter than most I’ve tried.”
“Next weekend, I’ll have Tim, my driver, pick you up and bring you to my place. I’d like you to try some Bothie… I think you’ll enjoy it. Say, eight o’clock, Saturday?”
“No”—she shook her head—”you can’t push me around and make all these decisions for me. You’re sitting in my room without an invitation, drinking my wine, and making yourself at home. If you hadn’t called your secretary and verified who you were, I’d call security on you for breaking into my apartment.”
“I told you. You need a better, more secure dead bolt. I’m getting you one, and I’ll stay here while it’s installed to make sure everything goes all right,” he said. “Besides, you left out how I punched your boyfriend for you.”
“Ex-boyfriend.” She let her head fall back and looked up at the ceiling. “I can’t deal wi
th you.”
“I’m not asking you to. I believe I asked you over to drink my wine with me.” Damn, she was cute when she was flustered.
“I don’t know you, despite your attempt at making yourself my best friend.” She straightened, finally meeting his gaze and held it while finishing the rest of her wine. “Your name obviously means something, going by the way you order everyone around, but I repeat, I don’t know you.”
“I own Bauer Enterprise.” He paused, and when she shrugged, he continued. “The largest security firm with the best teams on the West Coast.”
Her brows rose. “Security guards?”
“Not quite.” He chuckled. “On a bigger level. Think corporate, political, and foreign affairs.”
“And it’s all yours?” Her arm came down, and she balanced her empty glass on her leg.
“Yes. Along with owning a few buildings along Sixth Street.” He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “Will you come to my house and share my wine?”
“Why?”
He smiled. “You’re tough.”
“I don’t make a habit of agreeing with a man because he’s bossy.” She raised her glass to take a sip, realized it was empty, and blushed.
He stood and retrieved the bottle from the kitchen and returned to the living room to fill her goblet. The doorbell rang.
“Sit. Enjoy your drink, and I’ll see who that is.” He walked across the room, peeked through the eyehole, which needed cleaning on the outside, and opened the door.
The next five minutes, he spent watching Jared, one of his maintenance men from his company, set up drilling a hole above the doorknob. He gazed at Katina on the other side of the room. She bit her fingernail, caught herself, and shoved her hand under her thigh.
She paid no attention to what was happening in her apartment, but seemed lost in thought. He walked over and squatted beside her chair. Two lines formed between her eyebrows, and he knew none of tonight had been easy for her to accept.
“Installation shouldn’t take more than a few more minutes.” He lowered his head, caught her gaze, and gave her a smile. “I know you’re confused and upset that I pushed my way in, but I’m used to getting my way. It would eat away at me if I left you in an unsecured apartment.”
Her mouth softened.
“Why don’t you let me worry about what is happening between us, and you can look forward to having a night with me, good wine, and even better conversation. We’ll start over.”
“What is happening between us?” she whispered, casting a glance at the door. “I get that you’re stubborn and used to getting your own way…you run your own company. I just don’t know your motive.”
He inhaled deeply. “The truth?”
She nodded.
“I find you absolutely captivating, and I want to get to know you better.” He lowered his voice. “I’m warning you, though. I’m a man who knows what I want, and I don’t let anything get in my way. Going from what I saw of your ex-boyfriend, I know you’re not used to dealing with someone like me, but you should know that all you have to do is say no, and I’ll walk out the door and leave you alone.”
She lifted her hand to her mouth. He snagged her fingers before she could bite her nail. “But you’re not going to tell me no. You’ll come to my house Saturday, and we’ll have a wonderful time.”
Katina sat silently. The door shut and reopened. He stood, lifted his jacket from the couch, and walked across the room. After testing the lock, he shook his employee’s hand and waited for Jared to take his tools and leave.
He remained standing in the open room, until they were once again alone. “Katina, come and lock the dead bolt behind me.”
She jumped from the chair and hurried over. He warmed at her reaction. A couple glasses of wine, time to come to her own conclusions, and she obeyed him. He was right. She was something special.
“I’ll have my driver pick you up.” He stepped into the hallway, and because she was adorable when she grew frustrated, he couldn’t help pushing a little more before he walked away. “And, Katina, when you do come to my house, your panties can be any color you want to wear.”
Chapter Three
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to go on a date with you.” Doreen, Katina’s best friend and assistant, bent her knees and leaned forward, opening the fridge in the limo. “A man who sends a driver with a car this fancy does not expect your errand girl to tag along.”
“You are not my errand girl. You’re an assistant to a demanding interior designer.” Katina pushed the control and rolled up the window dividing the backseat from the front. “Besides, it’ll teach him a lesson. He can’t order me around. He caught me off guard the other night, but I’m ready for Trent this time.”
“I’m not sure about that.” Doreen pulled at her short bangs, separating the strands in the edgy style she preferred after chopping off her shoulder-length hair only last week.
If Katina was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure at all about how she felt toward Trent. But she didn’t want Doreen or Trent to know her irritation over his bossiness came from her attempt to deny her attraction to him. His ordering her around gave her permission to see him again.
Trent’s sudden appearance in her life had upset the rest of her workweek. She’d spent more time Googling him, and finding out about the man who swept into her life and refused to leave, than she did on appointments.
What she found out impressed her. He owned a huge company and succeeded in doing more for the community than most people she knew, and he did it quietly without any big fanfare. She had to admire him for that alone. Everything she read validated what she suspected. He was a good guy. Too good.
Doreen grinned. “It’s okay if you’re scared. I only want you to be happy, and Kirk believes—”
Katina snorted. When he didn’t have his head in a book, Doreen’s brother spent his free time evaluating everyone’s lives. “You’ve told me. Kirk’s full of shit if he thinks he can see deeper inside of me than I can. He might be studying to be a psychologist, but he has yet to diagnose anyone in a professional capacity.”
Doreen smiled in the way that meant she wasn’t listening. “For one thing, you like older men. Even when we were in high school, you were flirting with men already out of college. It comes naturally to you, because—”
“They’re more mature. I didn’t enjoy sneaking a six-pack and hanging out at the end of some dead-end road anticipating having some unskilled boy pawing my breasts.” Katina shrugged. “The older I get, the same is true. I want something more substantial than weekend dates, someone more solid that I can make a life with…which Colby failed at. Hell, even the older men I’ve dated seem…soft and floundering in their life. I’m tired of dating and ending up disappointed. It’s not worth my time if a guy isn’t someone I can spend a lifetime with.”
“No, you want someone who can control the relationship, can handle your strong personality.” Doreen dug out her lip balm and applied it to her lips. “That’s why you fight with every guy that you go out with and break up with them before anything real can start.”
“That’s not true.” God, it totally is.
No matter how well Katina got along with her dates, once they hit five or six dates, she ended up picking them apart. She’d find some reason to argue, become unavailable, or become a royal bitch. They had no other option than to hit the road, and not look back.
Something was wrong with her. She sabotaged her own life, and for what? She didn’t want to be alone, but she also wanted a man who acted like a man. Maybe being an interior designer made it too hard to find a rugged man who would cherish her. It seemed lately all the men she’d dated were happy to go along with whatever she planned, or wanted all her attention. Nothing ruined the mood quicker than a man who gave her everything she wanted. Or thought she wanted.
So far, Trent filled her requirements. She groaned. “What am I doing?”
“You’re taking a chance. Something you’
ve needed to do for a long time.” Doreen reached across the empty space on the seat and squeezed her hand. “Give him a chance. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. All you have to do is let yourself be you. Let all your guards down. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He only wants to share a bottle of wine.” She sighed.
Doreen laughed. “Oh, girlfriend…”
“I’m an idiot.” Katina sank down in the seat. “That’s not why he asked me to come to his house, is it?”
Doreen’s smile grew. “Nope.”
“My clients see me as a professional.” Katina leaned her head back on the seat. “I need them to think I have my life under control, despite my age, so they trust me with their houses. It’s a huge freaking deal to me. If they saw me now, they’d never hire me. I don’t get how a woman can have a career and a personal life. Around Trent, I’m a mess. I can’t even think.”
“That’s called being young and carefree, girlfriend,” Doreen said. “You have it together more than you think. Remember, I see how you do business. You’re cool and collected. People do trust you.”
The car slowed down. Her heart raced. This was it.
Katina cupped her hand against the window and peered through the window. “Oh, frick. Are we where I think we are?”
“We have crossed the railroad tracks, girlfriend.” Doreen laughed. “I wonder if he’d mind if I take pictures.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, slapping Doreen’s leg.
Before she lost her nerve, the back door opened, and Doreen tugged her outside. She straightened, pulling down the short black dress. Why had she changed clothes, when the occasion called for jeans and a nice shirt?
“This way, ladies.” Tim led them up the walkway.
Without anyone telling her, she recognized the area as the hill overlooking the Puget Sound. She was scheduled to redesign a children’s recreation room for the Mitchells a few blocks down the road starting next week. Trent lived in a plush community with their million-dollar homes and long waiting list when houses finally did come on the market. Not that she could afford to live here yet.