How to Avoid a Billionaire(24)

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

He took a step toward her, but she backed up and spun away. “I’m going home. Please give me a ride. Better yet I’ll call a taxi.”

He caught up with her beside the bed and enfolded her in his embrace. She fought to get him off without effect. “I did it because it’s what I’m used to doing. More than that, I… I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I want you to stay. Think about it.” He spun her to face him and raised her chin. She drew back expecting him to kiss her, a move that would undermine her defenses again. He only refused to let her escape. “Rather than woo you using the lie, I told you the truth. I had no reason to…”

She opened her mouth, but he touched her lips.

“Other than to earn your trust.”

She smacked his hand so she could speak. “In a backward kind of way.”

“I’m a bai chi.”

“Totally.” She stopped struggling, and her anger melted away. Whether he spoke the truth now or not, she didn’t know, but he was right. He could have kept up the deception. She realized this was who he was, a man used to finding out what others wanted and creating a connection to win them over. The knowledge scared her because she couldn’t tell how he really felt, whether he liked her. His patience with her dad’s arrogance could have come from practice not because they had found camaraderie in each other. “I don’t know you, Ryder. I feel like I’m out of my league.”

“There is no league, only people.”

“That’s not true.”

He gave her a small shake, and she looked into his eyes. Her heart fluttered, and she couldn’t look away. Did he know how much he affected her? Of course he did. He’d trained for this, studied at the feet of his father and others.

“There’s only perception, Melanie.”

He called her by her name so infrequently, it sounded funny, and she kind of wanted to hear him call her angel again. She shook her head. He frowned, probably thinking she’d shaken her head because she disagreed with him.

“Spend the weekend with me. Let’s get to know each other without plans or tricks or games,” he said. “At the end, we’ll have had fun at the least. At best…” He shrugged.

“Let me go.”

He dropped his hands to his sides, and she stepped away. She felt his gaze follow as she walked to the French doors, but she focused on the water. A longing came over her she couldn’t deny, and she grinned. “Okay. First, you have to cook me breakfast—you, not your maid—and then I want to go out on the boat.”

“Done!”

A short while later, Melanie sat on one of the stools in the kitchen and drank fresh brewed coffee. She’d had to make it herself because Ryder had never made his own. “I can’t believe you’ve never brewed coffee. At the least you could have thrown together some instant in your life.”

He winced as he opened the refrigerator. “If I wanted to choke, sure. I’ve tried it. Not good. I’ve grown up with servants. My father kept full-time staff, so there wasn’t a need to learn anything.”

She held up a hand. “Hold on. No need to learn anything? That means you have no clue what you’re doing in that refrigerator right now? And you not knowing how to cook is incongruent with the guy who stayed up all night studying B movies.”

“I study what is directly useful. As for food…” He tapped his temple. “I memorized the numbers to caterers just in case Jodie is unavailable. Even in the few times she was not, there are other assistants at the company to fill in.”

“And at home?”

“Maria, the maid, can be called in at a moment’s notice, and James is a certified chef. So you see, I don’t have use for learning to cook.”

“Goodness, you’re complicated.”

He laughed. “And as for what I’m doing in here, I’ll show you.” He pulled out a plastic-wrapped plate piled with an assortment of pastries and set it on the counter. “Breakfast is served.”

“You knew that was in there when you agreed to make breakfast, didn’t you?”

“I’m always prepared.”

She grinned. After they enjoyed warm pastries that she heated and hot coffee, they headed upstairs to shower and dress. Melanie had to fight off his advances and then gave in once or twice before they strode outside in the direction of the pier. Melanie stopped short when she didn’t see a boat.

“Is it invisible?”

Ryder frowned and switched directions. She followed him into a small building, and she gasped. The place looked like a clubroom on one side and more rustic on the other with two wide doors that could swing open. She judged the doors to be facing the water.