A Virgin for His Prize(17)

“Good.”

Maxwell made a call and his bodyguard and personal administrative assistant came in to witness the contract. As a licensed notary, his secondary assistant notarized the contract, too.

Cold-bloodedly efficient? Maybe.

But it worked for him.

“You’re almost scarily resourceful.”

Maxwell didn’t deny it.

Grayson was cursing that truth fifteen minutes later when his bags were packed and Maxwell assigned him a bodyguard-babysitter that would make sure the other man would end up in the rehab center and stay there.



Romi breezed into the house at five minutes after noon, feeling anything but breezy.

But living by the mantra Never Let Them See You Sweat, she strove for nonchalance as she walked into the living room, where Mrs. K had told Romi she would find Mr. Black waiting for her.

His suit jacket removed and tossed over the back of a chair, his tie loosened and tailored slacks stretched attractively across his muscular thighs, Max relaxed on the sofa. The Grayson family photo albums covered the coffee table in front of him.

Max looked up from the one open in his lap. “Your mother was a beautiful woman.”

“Yes, she was.” Romi set her handbag down and crossed the room.

“You take after her.” He offered her a view of the album that required she sit beside him to see it.

It would have been churlish to refuse, so she didn’t. Tugging the hem of her tunic dress into place, Romi settled next to him. “Thank you, but most people think I look like my dad’s side of the family.”

“No.” Maxwell gave a decisive shake of his head. “Your eyes are not only the same color as hers, but the same almond shape as well.”

“She was a brunette.” Romi’s hair was the same color as her Grandmother Grayson’s had been in her youth. Not that she’d ever met the family matriarch.

“You can see that it was the same fine texture. Like silk…” Max made the words a caress. “And it was straight like yours.”

He grasped some strands of her hair between thumb and forefinger before sliding them down, maybe to show how silky her hair was?

For all the time Romi had spent studying the pictures of her mom, she’d never seen the things Max pointed out.

“I’m a shrimp compared to her.” Four inches taller than her daughter, Jenna Grayson had been a willowy beauty.

“Same pixie-shaped face.” He pointed to the pointed line of her mom’s jaw. “See?”

Romi found herself nodding, caught by his sincerity.

“You also have the same way of holding your head when you are amused. Look at this picture, and this one.” He grabbed one of the other albums.

“You really have been studying these. How long have you been waiting for me?” she asked, touched in a way she didn’t want to admit.

Max set the album down and gave Romi a look she didn’t understand, like he was trying to read something in her face. “Your father and I finished our business nearly two hours ago.”

“And you waited all that time for me?”

“Yes.”

“Why not leave and come back?” Or at least work on his table here? Why spend the time going through her family’s photo history?

“I found enough to occupy myself.”

He had, but certainly nothing she would have considered Maxwell Black spending his morning doing. It was just so domestic. And of all the words she’d used to describe this man, domestic was not one of them.

No matter how much he might care about his mother, she’d never thought of him as a family guy.

The strange intimacy of the moment getting to her, Romi stood up. “Let me just check in with my dad and then we can go to lunch.” She didn’t offer to change her clothes.

She’d worn a 1960s-inspired tunic dress in a bright pattern of yellow and white circles on a black background with leggings in the same shade of yellow when she left the house this morning. She’d had a strategy meeting with the local chapter of her favorite environmentalist group early that morning and then coffee with a woman instrumental in starting a series of successful charter schools around the country.

She couldn’t believe her and Maddie’s dream of starting their own charter school was so close to realization. Viktor Beck had offered to buy them a building as a wedding gift to Maddie.

Pretty wonderful, really.

Another reason Romi thought the guy might well be the right one for her best friend.

If her clothes were good enough for her meetings, they were good enough for Max.

She wasn’t going to try to sex up the outfit.

Max stood as well. “Your father is not here.”

“What?” He’d gone into the office? Today? “I thought—”