She ignored the way his voice lowered so suggestively, the images that it conjured before her and the wildfires it sent spinning over her skin. She dropped her hand to her side and nodded at the view behind him. An infinity pool lay on the far side of the patio, the water as smooth as glass, surrounded by more of the smooth dark wood, and beyond it, the endless sea. Yet Cayo sat with his back to it, more interested in his laptop computer, the documents spread out before him on the desk, the television on the wall tuned, as ever, to the financial news.
"You haven't been here in years." She knew she should walk to the desk, sit down, act appropriately and do her job, but she couldn't bring herself to move that close to him. Not so soon after the last two nights of all that savage intensity. Not yet. "Not in as long as I've worked for you."
"It was eight years ago, I believe," he agreed, that lean body much too still, as if he was deliberately leashing all of his power as he sat and watched her. As he waited. "When I bought the place from some Saudi prince or another."
Dru bit at her lip, that fluttery feeling twisting and suddenly too close to another surge of what felt like tears. As if it was impossible to be around him without all of this emotion welling up in her. She was afraid she might simply burst.
"I don't understand the point of owning beautiful things you never see." Her voice should have sounded casual. Easy. Not...raw. Wounded. She was supposed to be so good at this kind of thing! "And now that you're here for the first time in almost a decade, you're sitting inside in an office, working. Moving all your money and power about like an endless game of chess. Why bother collecting all these little pieces of paradise if you never plan to let yourself enjoy them?"
He looked at her for a beat, then another. And then that same look she'd seen the night before, as if he'd come to some kind of decision, gleamed in his eyes. A little chill snaked down Dru's back. Cayo moved from his chair, rising to his feet and prowling toward her.
Dru had to fight to stand still-not to break and run. He stopped when he was a foot or so away, and that cruel mouth of his, brutally sensual and entirely too dangerous, quirked slightly in the corner. Dru felt it like another touch, like the hand he'd pressed against her cheek in Milan, like his thumb across her mouth last night. Her blood seemed too hot in her veins, her skin felt too tight across her body, and when she reached over to grab the doorjamb again, it was because her legs were too weak to hold her upright.
And still, he only looked at her. Through her. Making the fire inside her leap high, burn white.
"I appreciate your concern," he said in that silky voice that teased along her oversensitive skin, moved like a shiver down her spine, and then made even her bones ache. "It's too bad you insist upon leaving me. We could play chess with my properties together."
"What a lovely idea," she said with a great insincerity she took no pains to conceal, and which made him look something close enough to amused. "But I am terrible at chess."
"I find that hard to believe." She thought he nearly smiled then, gazing down at her. "You are always at least six moves ahead. You'd excel at it."
She had the oddest sense of déjà vu for a moment and then it came to her-he was talking to her like a person. Not as his employee, but as another human being. Someone he actually knew. The last time he'd done this, he'd teased her in just this way. They'd smiled. They'd told stories, shared parts of themselves over small dishes of food and large glasses of wine. Or she'd thought they had. That had been that long dinner in Cadiz, before their fateful walk home, and Dru couldn't stand her own treacherous heart, the way it softened for him anew, as if she didn't know exactly where moments like this led. Precisely nowhere, with a three-year detour through infatuated subservience.
She could not let him reel her in. Not again.
"I'm not here to play games," she said quietly, hoping he couldn't hear the unevenness in her voice, that clash between what was good for her and what she wanted. "I'm here to be your personal assistant. The only other offer on the table was to be your dog. On a leash. Isn't that what you said? Is that what you'd prefer?"
His gaze heated, becoming so molten she could hardly bear it, though she didn't look away. His mouth twisted. She remembered belatedly that he was much too close, his potent masculinity and all of that restless, brilliant power of his bright and brilliant between them, making her swallow hard. Making her feel too hot, too weak, all at once.
"If you want to be my pet you must sit," he growled at her. Daring her. Commanding her. "Stay. Surrender."
And the worst part was, she very nearly obeyed.
"I do appreciate the offer," Dru whispered when she could speak, but she hardly heard her own voice, lost as it was in the thunder of her heartbeat, the shriek and clamor of the storm only gaining strength inside her. "But I think I'll pass."
She should have moved-but she didn't. She only stood there, paralyzed, as Cayo closed the distance between them and stretched an arm up, over his head, to brace himself against the doorjamb and look down directly into her face.
She thought of old gods again, stunning and unpredictable, implacable and fierce. Something deep inside her seemed to go very, very still. He leaned there, propped up in the doorway, dark eyes and that sinful body, exuding the ruthlessness and command that made him who he was.
Worse than that, he looked at her as if he knew her at least as well as she knew him. As if he could read her as easily as she'd learned to read him. And the very notion was as terrifying-as impossible-as it had been before.
"Tell me," he said, his voice even lower, his golden amber eyes so hot she worried they might blister her skin or consume her whole. "What are you hiding from?"
* * *
For a moment, she looked almost as if he'd punched her in the stomach. But then she blinked, the mask Cayo had come to hate descended, and she even produced a strained sort of smile.
That might have irritated him, but he was done with this. He'd decided he would have her no matter what games she played, and he would lick that wall away if he had to. He looked forward to it.
"The only thing I've been hiding from today is our workload," she said brightly. Hiding, he knew. Right there in front of him. "Perhaps we should get to it."
"Forget about work," he growled, a sentence that had never crossed his lips before, perhaps not ever. And he didn't allow himself to consider the ramifications of that-all he could seem to concentrate on was the confusing woman in front of him. And how very much he wanted her, despite all the reasons he knew that was a bad idea. "We're in Bora Bora. Work can wait."
"I beg your pardon?" She looked unduly horrified.
"What's the point of being the boss if I can't decree a holiday on a whim?" he asked, striving for a lighter tone and, if that look on her face was any indication, failing. "Didn't you suggest I enjoy myself in paradise not five minutes ago?"
"To hell with the consequences, is that it?" she asked, throwing that back at him, and her eyes flashed as if she was angry with him. Which grated.
He didn't understand any of this. He didn't understand what was happening to him, and he certainly didn't understand why everything he said made her so unhappy, or so furious. Or both at once. Why she leaped from boats to escape him, then looked at him on a dark Italian terrace with all the world in her eyes and spoke of punishment, making him feel small three years later.