Inside lurked a completely different world. Traffic noise was hushed. At least three stories high, the lobby ceiling was made entirely of glass that grew up out of the floor at the front and curled over, allowing a wide strip of sunlight to pour down from between the surrounding buildings. Above them, the curved balustrade of the mezzanine provided an overlook. The floor appeared to be polished marble in varying shades of gray and black swirled through with cream. A broad belt of sunshine crept across the marble toward the huge circular fountain filling the lobby center. Charlie put a hand to her mouth, mesmerized as beams of light slid up the sides, and the fountain's tiles seemed to glow with iridescent color-blues, greens, and reds, like a hummingbird in sunlight.
"It's magnificent," she whispered to Sebastian, wondering how on earth she could do it justice.
"I agree," he said in the same hushed tone, but his gaze was on her, not the fountain. "Totally magnificent."
CHAPTER FOUR
Magnificent. It was more than just a word to Sebastian, encompassing not only Charlie's beauty but also the wonder with which she took in everything around her.
"Did you plan the light show this way?" Her voice was quiet, as if they were in a sanctuary.
"It lasts only a short time as the sun moves through at noon. Then the effect is gone."
"You'll have people coming here just for this sight." She held her hands up to the ceiling, the sky, her skin glowing like that of a goddess in the sunlight streaming over her. "And it's not even hot."
"Low-E glass reduces the heat."
"You thought of everything."
"That's what I do." In Sebastian's experience, if you didn't account for every detail, if you didn't understand absolutely everything about the people you dealt with, life could go completely down the tubes.
But he'd never imagined this moment, standing close to the most beautiful, talented woman he'd ever seen. So close he could barely keep from shoving his hands into the thick, gorgeous red masses of her hair and tasting her.
Devouring her.
"Can you already see what the space needs?" He grinned as he added, "A T-Rex, maybe?"
Her smile was a radiant curve. She'd put her palms against her neck, her elbows together in front of her, as if the posture increased her concentration. Tipping her head one way, then the other, she looked up, turned a circle, then stopped in the same spot she'd started from. "I love my T-Rex, but he's not right for this space."
Watching her work, getting to be a part of her creative process, had a physical effect on him. A need to touch, to taste, to explore. To try to satisfy all his cravings for her right here, right now. Yet at the same time, it went beyond sex. Because he wanted to be a part of that inner life, to touch the inner woman, to explore her genius. During his early morning meeting, he'd even found himself imagining how he wanted to sketch her. Instead of paying attention to the details of the negotiation, he couldn't stop thinking of her.
Sebastian had never felt this way about a woman. Not until Charlie.
Then, when her eyes suddenly met his, he was hit with another one of those electric jolts as she said, "I know what you need."
You.
"Tell me."
"A chariot race. Like in Ben-Hur." Her arms came out, encompassing the whole, then her fingers curled as if she were creating her vision out of water that wasn't even flowing yet. "Four horses running so fast they're almost flying. The chariot bouncing so hard, it throws its driver, then slams on its side, snaps its wheel, and the magnificent stallions gallop headlong, dragging the broken carcass of the chariot behind them." She tilted her head as if she was already looking at the sculpture in the middle of his building. "Can you see it?"
"Yes, I see it. The horses breaking free of all attempts to control their power-of everything holding them back-so they can run as fast as they were born to go. It's what all of us truly long for."
The images were so alive in her head that it would have been impossible for him not to see them too. But even clearer was Charlie, red hair on fire in the sun, her features shining, the light coming from inside her as well as outside. Her eyelashes lay lush against her cheeks as she closed her eyes for one long moment of vision. Her excitement was like fuel, making his heart beat faster, his blood pump harder.
"The fountain has to blow the water up, right under their feet, like it's earth and dust roiling beneath their beating hooves. Can you do that?"
"Yes." For her, he could do anything. He would do anything. Everything she wanted. Everything she needed. He would be her patron. He would show her work to society, introduce her to his world. And he wouldn't rest until she'd conquered it all.
She pivoted on her heel and grabbed his forearms, her touch branding him. "It was meant to be here. I can see it so clearly."
Her eyes were the deep verdant green of a forest when the sun hits the leaves after a hard rain. Her skin was flushed pink, her fingers warm, her grip on him unrelenting. Their eyes locked for an endless moment.
Then her gaze fell to his mouth. Her breath came harder, and she licked her bottom lip. She held more tightly to him, her body leaning closer...closer... He wanted his mouth on hers. He wanted her lips on his. He wanted to taste and touch and never let go.
"Sebastian," she said softly, with the same awe he'd heard when she'd seen the light come shining through just minutes before. "Do you want it?" She could have meant the statue. She could have meant the heat that sizzled between them.
"God, yes," he said, his voice so full of need it almost hurt as it rose up from his throat. "I want it all."
He was barely a heartbeat from tangling his fingers in her hair and crashing his mouth down on hers when his brain replayed her question from the previous afternoon: You're not expecting anything from me other than a sculpture, are you?
He'd promised her there weren't any strings attached to the commission. Which meant that even though he wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to take his next breath, he'd never forgive himself if she thought the price of her art was sex.
"Do you believe I want your chariot as much as I want you?"
She paused, just long enough that he knew her answer even before she said, "Maybe."
"Maybe," he said slowly as he let himself take one more greedy glance at her gorgeous mouth, "isn't in my vocabulary."
"It isn't usually in mine either," she told him in her delightfully straightforward way. "Then again-" She smiled and her eyes sparkled in the rain of sunlight. "-I can't think of the last time I was so tempted by a billionaire. You are going to adore my chariot and horses."
"I'm sure I will." He couldn't imagine anything about her that he wouldn't adore. That he wouldn't crave. "Your new workshop is all ready for you."
"I've got some things to wrap up first. Let's make the move to your workshop the day after tomorrow. Plus, I've got to load all my welding equipment into my truck." She ticked things off on her fingers. "The MIG and the TIG. My torch. My plasma cutter. And any parts I can use from the yard. It will be better if I just drive my truck over."
Charlie spoke easily about trucks and trailers and torches. But he could see that she was beautiful and accomplished enough to fit into any world in which she chose to live. He would open a new universe to her, one full of glittering possibility, and he knew instinctively that his world would embrace her completely.
He wanted to take her upstairs to the helipad right this second and fly her off to his estate in the Hayward Hills so she wouldn't have a chance to change her mind. But he'd already learned that Charlie was as fiercely independent as her work. Was it because she'd moved around so much as a kid? Or was there another reason? Had someone in her past disappointed her and made it difficult for her to trust others? Sebastian understood that all too well, knew just how hard it could be to trust that the people who were supposed to be there for you would actually be there when you needed them.
Whatever her reasons, he knew for sure that dragging her to the workshop on his property as if he were a caveman would be a mistake. A big one. So instead of insisting she start today, he said, "I'll send a trailer with some guys to help with the loading. It'll be easier than trying to get everything in your truck."
Just as she had when he'd offered her the commission yesterday, she didn't jump at his offer. Instead, she took the time to turn it over in her mind, before she finally nodded. "That will work great, thank you." She tilted her chin at the fountain and when she touched him again, her hand on his arm, everything inside him stilled, absorbing her heat, her closeness, her heady scent. "The sun show...it's almost over."