Page 10 of First Touch

It was a warning. Yet I ignored it. “Even as a teenager? You don’t have to fake bravado for me. I’m impressed whether you were strong and stoic or sad and over-your-head.”

He held the silence for a moment then let out a sigh. “I was a little bit of all of it. But I’d been trained for the hotels. My father was a lot older than my mother and was a workaholic. He had already had one heart attack. I knew this would be my future, sooner rather than later. And it helped that I didn’t inherit everything right away. The board ran the company until I was twenty-one.”

“What did you do with the time in between?” These answers weren’t ones I needed. I’d asked mostly because I wanted him to feel comfortable telling me things. But also because I was shockingly genuinely interested.

“Lived with my grandparents in Greece.” He noticed my surprise. “I’m guessing your Internet searching didn’t tell you that.”

I shook my head.

“It’s not widely known. My mother’s family is… well, complicated. So I don’t speak about them often because the media will undoubtedly twist it and make of it what they will. And frankly, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business but my own.” He paused and I thought he might not say any more on the subject, including me in the people whose business it wasn’t.

He surprised me. “I lived there until I was eighteen and then came back to the States for college.”

“Stanford, right?” I waited for him to nod. “And your grandparents – are you close to them?”

“Nope. My grandfather died a few years back. And I haven’t seen my grandmother since I left. Though I do send her a card every year on her birthday.”

“A thin piece of mail is no substitute for a grandson’s love,” I teased, or challenged, rather.

Reeve glared, but a smirk played on his lips. “No, it’s not. But since her parting words to me were, ‘If you leave, don’t ever come back,’ I feel like a card is more than expected. Or deserved.”

I took that in. “It sounds like there’s more of a story there.”

“There is.” He stood and moved to lean on the concrete edging of the pit, facing me. “But I’m not willing to tell it.”

I sat back on my hands and studied him. I wondered if under different circumstances he would be the kind of guy I could like. The kind that I could truly care for. The kind of guy that would destroy me.

More importantly, was he the kind of guy Amber could like? Or had he really been just another one of her sugar daddies? And if so, what exactly had Reeve gotten out of the exchange?

“What are you thinking?”

I didn’t even blink. “That you certainly know how to be intriguing. I’m guessing you’re also intriguing in fluent Greek.”

“Intriguing in Greek,” he said, amusement lining his words. “I speak the language, yes.”

“Say something for me.”

“Another time.” He swept a heated gaze over me. “You know what’s intriguing?”

Yes. This. I liked this. Liked how his stare felt coarse and predatory.

I played coy. “What? Me?”

“Very.” There was the expression again, his eyes meeting mine, intruding into me, into places deep and sacred and delicate. Places I’d filled so compactly with secrets and memories and Amber that they felt crowded with him there too.

And when he looked at me like that, I had an unexplainable urge to make room for him. For only him.

My instinct was to look away, but I forced myself to bear it. And then I noticed he was struggling too. My breath grew fast and shallow. “No way. I’m boring, mostly.” But there was nothing boring about this. Nothing dull about the shine between us. It was strong and hot like a wire that only became live when we both held an end.

Then he shifted, and the fire was directly behind him, putting his face in shadow. “I wouldn’t call any woman who chases after a man boring.” Though I couldn’t read his features, his tone seemed suddenly harder. Accusing even, and the electricity between us notched up a degree.

“I didn’t chase after you exactly. I didn’t even know you’d be at the resort when I booked the trip.” Lies. I’d chased him. And though I hadn’t been positive he’d be at his Palm Springs resort, I’d suspected based on his previous habits around the holidays. It took more than a week to figure out how to get him alone.

“Then when you learned I was here, you decided to…?”

“I decided to meet you.” It was another interrogation, like the one at the pool, but more intent. I pretended I didn’t notice and tried to return us to the easiness of the moment before. “This surely isn’t the first time you’ve been come on to, Reeve. How do you normally meet women?”

Even though his expression was indifferent, his eyes reached everywhere – the insides, the outsides. Touching me, tickling me in ways that made me flush and squirm and burn. “Normally, I don’t meet women unless I want to,” he said. “Normally, I initiate.”